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A CERTAIN MAN 




A CERTAIN MAN 


BY 

BRYAN T. HOLLAND 

AUTHOR OF 

“A VAGRANT TUNE” 



BOSTON 

SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 






Copyright, 1924 

By SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 

(Incorporated) 



Printed in the United States of America 


THE MURRAY PRINTING COMPANY 

CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 

THE BOSTON BOOKBINDING COMPANY 
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 


APR -9 ’24 

©C1A777860 


A CERTAIN MAN 




A CERTAIN MAN 


CHAPTER I 

John Ffoulkes, sitting at his writing table, gazing out 
through the one rather dingy window of his sitting-room 
at the row of mean houses opposite, depressing in a mon¬ 
otony which even the spring sunshine failed to alleviate, 
felt a sudden rush of longing settle upon his soul for the 
little stone-built house on the Cornish coast which had 
been the home of his childhood and youth; for just one 
glimpse of the blue sea as he could fancy it would be look¬ 
ing on such a day as this, with the sunlight diving into the 
cool trough of the waves and shining green and lambent 
through the crests of the great curling breakers with their 
fringe of white foam, as they raced shorewards to dash them¬ 
selves against the towering cliffs. He could picture the fish¬ 
ing boats slipping out between the gray weather-beaten piers 
of the primitive harbour to make for the open sea outside 
the bay, there to ride up and down on the swell while the 
crews waited for the school of mackerel to sweep in and 
fill their ready nets. The men would be calling to one 
another across the water in the dear familiar west country 
accent while the gulls, circling overhead, screeched in a 
frenzy of excitement at the prospect of a meal which would 
not entail any strenuous efforts on their parts. 

The headlands, stretching their great arms into the sea, 
would be ablush with sea-pinks at this time of the year. 
On the cliffs the gorse bushes would be flaunting their 
golden splendour and trying to outshine the sun itself, 
whilst the spray, thrown up by the thundering waves as 
they beat impotently against the feet of those same cliffs, 



2 


A CERTAIN MAN 


would look like a handful of jewels tossed carelessly into 
the air by some giant hand, as the light caught and be¬ 
dizened them with all the colours of the rainbow. 

So vivid was the picture John Ffoulkes’ imagination 
painted for him that, for the moment, the drab street out¬ 
side his window ceased to exist, as far as he was con¬ 
cerned; his eyes, instead of looking out on to patched and 
discoloured walls of dirty yellow brick, saw, as if it were 
actually before him, a limitless expanse of rolling waters 
stretching away to the far horizon and so realistic was 
the vision that he found himself drawing in deep breaths 
as though he were veritably able to inhale the brine-laden 
air blowing straight across the Atlantic from Newfoundland. 

It was not often that John rebelled against the state of 
life to which he had been called, but on the rare occasions 
when he did he realised something of what a caged wild 
animal feels as it paces restlessly up and down behind the 
bars which separate it from freedom. Go into the lion- 
house at the Zoological Gardens next time you are in that 
direction and watch one of the beasts who has known what 
liberty means and you will see, reflected in its eyes, not 
the crowd of curious sight-seers, not the iron bars of its 
cage but the trackless impenetrable jungle, the mystery of 
the bush on a moonlight night with its deep shadows barred 
with silver streaks, the barely perceptible movement of 
the thick undergrowth as some denizen of the forest makes 
his cautious way to the drinking pool, fearful of meeting 
an implacable foe ready to pounce and fasten its cruel 
claws in its back while the sharp white teeth bite into the 
quivering flesh. 

John, like the caged wild beast, knew something of 
freedom because, for more than three years of the war he 
had served as chaplain to the forces, living a man’s life 
among men, sharing their privations, facing with them a 
common danger, daily and hourly risking death or, worse 
still, mutilation, seeing terrible sights, hearing all around 
him the cries and groans of the wounded, comforting the 



A CERTAIN MAN 


3 


dying, burying the dead, yet, despite all this (or perhaps 
because of all this) realising something of the unfettered 
existence of primeval man dwelling in his cave in the 
thicket, hunter and hunted, a savage beast among all the 
other savage beasts but their acknowledged lord and master 
by virtue of his manhood. Primeval man, it is true, knew 
nothing of the irksomeness of red tape and King’s Regula¬ 
tions, but even these drawbacks could not stop John from 
sharing to a certain degree his sense of liberty. 

But that time was over and done with and John was 
back in the stifling over-crowded parish in the east end of 
London in which, before the war, he had been a curate and 
to which he had returned in a similar capacity. Once more 
he walked close beside sin and suffering and that desperate 
need of the very essentials of life which makes men forget 
their birthright, and the sin and suffering were not purified 
by their surroundings, as John had felt them to be during 
the war, but stalked naked and unashamed through the 
courts and alleys of the city marking down their victims. 

Small wonder if, at times, his soul sickened within him as 
the realisation of his impotency to cope with the burden of 
the people committed to his charge grew more and more 
insistent, although he knew the fault did not lie with him 
but with the conditions of life over which he had no 
control. 

At such times he felt inclined, like Elijah, to say Tt is 
enough. Oh Lord, now take away my life, this life spent 
amid squalor and dirt and pitiful ignorance of all that 
makes life sweet and clean and wholesome and put me to 
work in a part of Thy vineyard where I can wrap myself 
up in the peace of the country and forget that such things 
exist.’ 

He acknowledged the unworthiness of such an attitude, 
and usually he managed to battle successfully against these 
wild longings and regrets, but this afternoon they would not 
be denied and at length, unable to focus his attention on 
his work, he sprang up and, like the caged wild beast, began 



4 


A CERTAIN MAN 


to pace restlessly up and down the tiny room. The large 
square table, which occupied most of the floor space, left 
but little scope between it and the fireplace for any 
energetic movements and, with a sudden impatient shove, 
John sent it crashing against the chairs which stood in a 
prim row behind the door in order to give a wider area for 
his peregrinations, and was about to resume his exorcising 
walk when his eye was attracted by a small bunch of flowers 
lying on the carpet which was certainly not part of its 
floral design of pink roses tied with bows of yellow ribbon. 
He stooped and, picking it up, saw that it was composed of 
about half a dozen extremely faded bluebells kept together 
by a remnant of black bootlace wound tightly round their 
inadequate stalks. Where it came from or how long it had 
lain there John had no idea, but there it indisputably was, 
bearing, in spite of its jaded appearance, a message from the 
country to its fellow exile, and when he held it to his 
nostrils, there was still a trace of its delicate scent clinging 
to it. 

He stood where he happened to be, drawing in the faint 
perfume, and at that precise instant a barrel organ in the 
street outside his window began playing a catchy tune 
from some musical comedy, at the sound of which two 
small girls on the opposite pavement commenced to dance 
with a kind of serious abandon, holding out their scanty 
skirts at each side, between thumb and forefinger, with 
intuitive grace, advancing, retiring, bending their supple 
young bodies backwards and forwards, swaying from side 
to side in rhythm to the gurgling accompaniment, too intent 
on the intricacies of their steps even to smile, though their 
faces were full of solemn satisfaction as they performed their 
evolutions with the absorbed demeanor of those who per¬ 
petuate some religious rite. An older girl, standing in an 
open doorway watching them, took up the refrain of the 
song which the organ was grinding out and her voice reached 
the watcher in the shadow of the room through the open 
window. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


5 


“ Look for the silver lining 
Whene’er a cloud appears in the blue. 

Remember somewhere the sun is shining 
And so the right thing to do 
Is make it shine for you. 

A heart full of joy and gladness 
Will always banish sadness and strife; 

So always look for the silver lining 
And try to find the sunny side of life,” 

she sang, and though her voice had a strident note in it 
and she pronounced her words with an unmistakable Cock¬ 
ney accent, it seemed to John almost like an injunction to 
throw off his black mood of despondency and, as the song 
counselled, “ try to find the sunny side of life.” That it 
existed even among these unpromising surroundings was 
evident. In the brief space of a single minute he had twice 
had ocular demonstration of the fact. David playing the 
harp to Saul had not achieved more than this east-end girl 
with her cracked voice and Cockney accent. The dove, re¬ 
turned to the ark with the olive leaf in its mouth, brought 
no surer token of hope than the faded bunch of bluebells 
picked up off the floor. 

The wild longing died away in John’s breast as suddenly 
as it had been born and he pulled the table back to its 
original position in the middle of the floor, straightened the 
chairs against the wall, rearranged the hearth rug which 
had got kicked into a heap, and generally ridded up the 
room, feeling, as he did so, that the action was the outward 
and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace which 
had been vouchsafed. Then he went to the door and, put¬ 
ting his head out, shouted. 

In Eddis Street, in No. 14 of which John lived and moved 
and had his circumscribed being, bells are an unknown 
luxury. If anything is wanted the person who wants it 
either fetches it for himself or else shouts till someone comes 
who will fetch it for him. 



6 


A CERTAIN MAN 


John accordingly shouted. 

“ Mrs. Ottoway.” 

There being no response to his summons he went out into 
the passage and shouted once more and, still failing to elicit 
any reply, ran upstairs two steps at a time and presently 
reappeared with a bottle of water and a tooth-glass which he 
took into the sitting room and, pouring some of the water 
into the glass, proceeded to arrange the bluebells in it. 
This done, he cleared a space on the mantelpiece by the 
simple expedient of sweeping a pile of papers at one end 
of it on to the floor which he had lately been at such pains 
to tidy, and placed the makeshift flower vase on the spot 
where they had been. Then he returned to his seat at the 
writing table and resumed his interrupted work which con¬ 
sisted of the preparation of his sermon for Sunday. He 
had just got into the swing of it again when a knock 
sounded on the door — a mere concession to etiquette 
apparently — for it opened simultaneously, before he had 
even time to say “ Come in,” and his landlady appeared on 
the threshold. 

She was so large and stout and comfortable looking with 
such a jolly good-natured face that she at once gave an 
air of homeliness to the room which it ordinarily rather 
lacked. She was obviously a person who could be relied 
upon to deal with any situation which might arise, however 
unexpected, and, what is more, deal with it in a calm unim¬ 
passioned manner which would wear down opposition to her 
methods of settling things by sheer imperturbation. 

She took everything in her stride, as it were, never got 
flurried or excited, never lost her head under any circum¬ 
stances, and was equally capable of combatting a drunken 
man or the tax collector if either was so misguided as to 
show signs of fight. 

From the first moment in which John set foot in her 
house she had taken him under her ample wing and moth¬ 
ered and cossetted him, although she didn’t, as she quite 
frankly told him, when he came to see the rooms, “ hold 



A CERTAIN MAN 


7 


with parsons,” and was accustomed quite openly and with¬ 
out restraint to talk in his presence of the “ monkey-’ouse,” 
which was her designation of the clergy house in the neigh¬ 
bouring parish. It was impossible to take offence at her 
remarks for she made them in such a light-hearted indulgent 
way that all the sting was taken out of them, and even the 
inmates of the “ monkey-house ” who occasionally dropped 
in to smoke a pipe and have a chat with John, chaffed her 
on the subject, demanding nuts and recommending her to 
buy a tin of Keating’s for use after their visits, all of which 
she took in good part, never losing her temper and always 
ready with a suitable rejoinder. 

John, in spite of his thirty-four years, she persisted in 
regarding as a mere boy, and indeed there was still a good 
deal of the boy in him which even the war had not suc¬ 
ceeded in destroying. There was something fresh and 
sparkling about him which instantly touched some hidden 
chord in those with whom he came in contact so that they 
themselves felt rejuvenated. 

As Mrs. Ottoway, in one of her more expansive moments, 
remarked to her husband when discussing their lodger, “1 
don’t know ’ow it is but ’e reminds me of Margate,” and 
when pressed for an explanation could only add, “ It was 
a sunny day, and the little waves were all shining and 
bright.” 

The explanation certainly did sound silly as Mr. Otto¬ 
way was not slow to point out, but all the same it had an 
element of truth in it. There was some kinship between 
John and the sea on a sunny day. Perhaps the ocean which 
had been his wet-nurse and rocked him so often on her 
breast had nurtured in him some of her own nature so that 
he could but disclose it in his. 

John swung round on his chair as Mrs. Ottoway came in. 

“ Did you call?” she enquired, a trifle breathlessly, for she 
had been up in her bedroom at the top of the house chang¬ 
ing her dress and had hurried over the process at the sound 
of his summons and, incidentally, descended three flights of 



8 


A CERTAIN MAN 


stairs at a far greater speed than was her wont in order to 
answer it. 

“ It was only for some water,” answered John. “ It 
doesn’t matter now, thanks. I got it out of my bedroom.” 

“ Not out of the jug, I do ’ope,” ejaculated Mrs. Ottoway. 

“ Why shouldn’t I get it out of the jug?” asked John, a 
trifle mystified by his landlady’s vehemence which seemed 
quite uncalled for. 

“ Microbes, that’s why,” retorted Mrs. Ottoway in a 
determined manner. 

“ Oh, it wasn’t to drink!” John hastily assured her. “ It 
was for those flowers on the mantelpiece.” 

He pointed in their direction, thus drawing Mrs. Otto- 
way’s attention to them. Mrs. Ottoway didn’t, strictly 
speaking, approve of flowers out of their proper place 
which, in her opinion, was the garden or, at a pinch, a 
window box, but since it was John’s pleasure to have them 
“ littering ” his room she forbore to comment on their 
presence. The tooth-glass however was not a thing to be 
passed over in silence. 

“ Now, Mr. Ffoulkes, you know better than that, bringing 
the toilet-ware down into the sitting room,” she said, in the 
admonishing tones generally reserved for children or 
invalids, kindly but firmly. “ You’d only to call me and I’d 
’ave brought you a vawse.” 

“ I did call,” John reminded her, feeling rather like an 
argumentative little boy questioning his nurse’s dictum. 

“ But you didn’t give me time to answer,” Mrs. Ottoway 
pointed out patiently, as one reasoning with a person of 
slightly inferior mental calibre who must be treated with 
every consideration. 

“To talk of time when it’s a question of a woman dress¬ 
ing herself!” said John scornfully. 

“ ’Ow d’ you know I was dressing meself?” demanded 
Mrs. Ottoway. 

“ Because you’re all unbuttoned,” replied John in trium¬ 
phant tones. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


9 


“ Well then you didn’t ought to look,” replied Mrs. Otto- 
way, not in the least abashed, leisurely repairing the 
omission. 

“I say, where did those bluebells come from?” asked 
John, reverting to the previous subject. 

“ One of them Fresh Air Funders, I expect. They always 
come back laden with rubbidge.” 

“ But they couldn’t have walked in by themselves. Some¬ 
body must have brought them,” John said. “ I found them 
on the floor.” 

Mrs. Ottoway’s eyes and mouth suddenly disappeared 
inside her cheeks, which was the phenomenon that always 
took place when she laughed, and was accompanied by a 
strange gurgling sound which, as far as could be judged 
by external evidence, originated in that part of her anatomy 
called, by courtesy, her waist and, working its way slowly 
upwards, at last found an outlet through her compressed 
lips. 

“ Ah, maybe they did walk in by theirselves,” she said, 
with ponderous humour, and was so obviously delighted 
with her own witticism that John, although he saw nothing 
excruciatingly funny in the remark, laughed in sympathy. 

“ I expect ’Melia took ’em in and put ’em on the table and 
then swep’ ’em off again,” observed Mrs. Ottoway, when 
she had sufficiently recovered from the paroxysm of mirth 
into which her late extremely feeble joke had thrown her. 

’Melia was the “ help ” who came in each morning to 
assist Mrs. Ottoway in her household duties. She was a 
lanky raw-boned girl of fifteen who apparently suffered from 
chronic catarrh in the head and relied on sniffing often and 
loudly in preference to using a handkerchief. She spoke 
in a husky whisper, and was so distressingly humble that 
once, when John inadvertently trod heavily on her foot, she 
hoarsely murmured “ Thank yer, Sir ” below her breath as 
though he had conferred an immense favour upon her. 

John accepted the explanation without comment. It 
seemed so consistent with what he knew of ’Melia’s char- 



10 


A CERTAIN MAN 


acter that she should put a thing on the table and then 
sweep it off again. ’Melia, to judge from the scraps of 
conversation he overheard in the mornings between her and 
Mrs. Ottoway, spent most of her existence in carefully 
undoing what she had just done. If she brushed the stairs 
she invariably went outside the front door to shake the 
mat directly she had finished them and on her reentry 
tramped up them with her muddy or dusty boots so that 
the work had all to be done again. Did she wash out a 
tablecloth one day, it was the sure signal for her to upset 
the mustard or coffee or milk over it when she cleared away 
the breakfast things next morning. She systematically 
browned black boots and blacked brown. She poured boil¬ 
ing water into teapots innocent of tea or, if she put the 
tea in, forgot to add the water. She filled saltcellars with 
castor sugar and, as a setoff to that, stirred salt into the 
milk puddings. And all the time she sniffed with madden¬ 
ing persistency. A sniff heralded her arrival in the morning 
and a sniff punctuated each retreating footfall as she 
wended her way homewards at one o’clock. 

The house seemed almost uncannily silent the first ten 
minutes after she had gone. It was like sitting in a room 
with a grandfather clock that has suddenly stopped ticking. 

“ Why does Amelia sniff like she does?” inquired John 
with pardonable curiosity, the mention of her name recalling 
this unpleasant failing of hers to his mind. 

“ She’s got a growth at the back of her nose, pore lamb,” 
said Mrs. Ottoway sympathetically. 

In his wildest flights of imagination John had never pic¬ 
tured ’Melia as even remotely resembling a lamb, and that 
she should be thus designated because of a growth at the 
back of her nose was altogether too much for him. He 
simply lay back in his chair and howled with laughter, and 
Mrs. Ottoway, although, in this case, she could see nothing 
funny in her remark, started to gurgle again from pure 
enjoyment at seeing him amused. 

“ By Jove! ” John gasped breathlessly when he had recov- 



A CERTAIN MAN 


11 


ered himself, “ I’m blest if I ever thought I’d find the silver 
lining in Amelia.” 

Mrs. Ottoway stopped gurgling and looked at him re- 
proachingly. 

“ Some may call it that, Sir,” she said, “ but her mother 
calls it adenoids, and any’ow, give it what name you will, 
it’s her misfortune not her fault and as such to be pitied not 
made a mockery of.” 

John got up from his chair and going over to Mrs. Otto¬ 
way laid both his hands on her shoulders. 

“ You old silly,” he said, gently shaking her, “ I wasn’t 
laughing at Amelia’s adenoids, I was laughing at my own 
thoughts. Don’t you know me better than that?” 

“ Well, Sir, it did seem like a revulsion of nature to ’ear 
you acting so foreign to yourself. But there, as you say, 
I oughter ’a’ known better,” said the good woman, instantly 
mollified. “ There’s many an act of kindness I’ve seen you 
do when you didn’t know I was watching. The people ’ud 
miss you sorely if you was to go, that they would.” 

“ Would they? Would they really miss me?” John asked, 
with a sudden sense of his unworthiness discomfitingly 
mingled with a recollection of his late rebellious mood. 

“ Why, o’ course they would,” declared Mrs. Ottoway 
soothingly. “ I’m sure it’s wonderful the way they looks up 
to you.” 

There was no sarcasm intended in her mode of expression 
and John took it in the spirit in which it was meant. 

“ I’ve lately felt as if I were just a beastly failure. I get 
so sick of it all.” The confession seemed wrung out of John 
against his will. 

“ It’s the spring, dearie,” said Mrs. Ottoway putting a 
toil-worn hand up to his arm and giving it an encouraging 
pat. “ All young things get restless in the spring. You 
want to get into the country and ’ave a good caper round 
like the little lambs do.” 

A vision of himself capering like a little lamb in a coun¬ 
try meadow rose before John’s eyes but he managed with 



12 


A CERTAIN MAN 


an effort to keep back the laughter which rose to his lips. 
Not for worlds would he have wounded the feelings of this 
simple old woman who loved him. She would have been 
horrified if she had realised that she had called him 
“ dearie.” The word had slipped out quite unconsciously 
but it had not escaped John’s notice and it gave him a 
comfortable glowing sensation in the region of his heart. 

“ Does Amelia caper?” he asked gravely. 

“ Now ’ave done with your nonsense, Mr. Ffoulkes,” Mrs. 
Ottoway said with simulated severity. “ ’Melia caper, 
indeed! She’d better let me catch her, that’s all!” 

“Well, you know, you did say she was a pore lamb,” 
John said. 



CHAPTER II 


Thursday was John’s weekly holiday and he generally 
on that day “ went west ” as Mrs. Ottoway, with a blissful 
disregard of wartime phraseology, expressed it. 

The very next Thursday therefore saw him starting off 
from Eddis Street directly after breakfast with the pleasant 
prospect ahead of him of twelve hours of uninterrupted 
freedom. 

His landlady chanced to be in the passage when he came 
out of his sitting room ready to be off, and followed him to 
the door and on to the step. 

“Well now, I ’ope you’ll enjoy yourself, and take care 
of them nasty old busses in Piccadilly,” she said as he 
departed. 

Her injunction referred to an unfortunate incident which 
had happened the previous winter when John, alighting 
from a bus at the corner of Bond Street, had slipped on the 
greasy roadway and measured his length in the mud to his 
own great embarrassment and the delight of his beholders, 
the result being that he spent the next three or four hours 
in the Turkish bath in Jermyn Street while his trousers 
and overcoat were being, as far as was possible, restored 
to a condition in which he could appear in them in public. 

Since that humiliating episode Mrs. Ottoway seemed to 
have become imbued with the idea that an omnibus in Pic¬ 
cadilly was, like a man in drink, a thing to be avoided if 
practicable but, if not, to be approached with due caution 
and watchful care in case it suddenly rounded on you and 
felled you to earth before you had time to defend yourself. 

She stood and watched him, swinging down the street, 
with the proud air of a mother who watches her first-born 
son going up to the platform at prize-giving to receive a 
book he doesn’t want from the hands of a local magnate 
who doesn’t really care whether he has it or not. 

13 


14 


A CERTAIN MAN 


It was only when John turned the corner and was lost 
to view that Mrs. Ottoway went back into the house, shut¬ 
ting the door carefully behind her. 

“ The ’ouse don’t seem the same with Mr. Ffoulkes out of 
it,” she confided to ’Melia presently, voicing her senti¬ 
ments to that unworthy recipient of them simply for want 
of anybody better. 

“ No’m,” replied ’Melia dutifully. 

Meanwhile John, on the top of a tram on his way to 
Aldersgate Street station, was busy mapping out his pro¬ 
gramme for the day. 

First he would do some shopping, then, when he had 
finished that, he would go to his club and lunch and after 
lunch he would put in an hour or so looking through the 
illustrated papers. This, he calculated, would bring him to 
three o’clock at which time he would start off to pay a 
call on his godmother who lived in Kensington. If she 
were at home he would have tea at her fiat and, on leaving 
there, would proceed to a quiet little restaurant he knew 
of, have dinner, and wind up with a visit to the pit of 
some theatre. 

Accordingly, having successfully carried through the first 
three items on his programme, the scheduled hour found 
him making his exit through the portals of his club to fulfill 
the next. 

The call on his godmother was more a duty than a 
pleasure, if the truth be told. She was a school friend of 
his mother’s whom he had not seen since he was a small 
boy, when she had come to stay at his home, and his chief 
recollection of her visit was the mean advantage she took 
of her sponsorship to forbid him to do all the things he 
most enjoyed and which ordinarily he was allowed to do. 
He mustn’t run about by himself on the edge of the cliff 
like he did. It made her feel giddy. He must hold her 
hand all the time, like a good little boy. He mustn’t bathe 
with nothing on. It wasn’t nice. Nor must he bathe with 
the village boys. He was a little gentleman, and if he 



A CERTAIN MAN 


IS 


demeaned himself in that way they might forget and treat 
him as if he were just one of themselves. He mustn’t go 
out in the sun without a hat. It might make him very 
ill and, equally, he must not go out in the rain without a 
coat nor in the wind without a muffler. He mustn’t paddle 
until an hour had elapsed after a meal. It would probably 
give him a dreadful dreadful pain in his stomach. John 
could still remember how she dropped her voice on the last 
word and spoke it with bated breath as if it were a gross 
impropriety for the human frame to have such a thing 
included in its composition. He supposed she had only 
been with them a week but on looking back it seemed an 
eternity and when she had gone he had, as a protest, 
escaped out of the house without a stitch on him and, 
in the pouring rain, had run down to the beach directly he 
left the table on the completion of a designedly heavy 
dinner, only pausing to shed his garments in the hall on his 
way through. 

In those far-off days the road, which now ran between the 
little stone house and the shore, was nonexistent. There 
was only a sloping green meadow dividing the garden from 
the sands. A vehicle of any sort wishing to get from one 
side of the bay to the other had either to cross the beach 
or, if the tide was high, to go round by an inland road, 
which meant an extra two or three miles added to the 
journey. This was fortunate for John on this particular 
occasion, for he ran no risk of encountering any stranger on 
his headlong flight seawards and therefore nobody’s sus¬ 
ceptibilities were hurt by the unexpected vision of a small 
boy tearing across a field in puris naturalibus pursued by 
three females — his aunt, the cook, and the nondescript 
individual, commonly known as “ the girl,” who filled in 
the domestic gaps. Even his mother, who never under any 
circumstances exerted herself unduly, joined in the chase 
as far as the front door at which point she abandoned it in 
favour of an armchair by the fire. The cook, he distinctly 
recollected, got no further than the garden gate where she 



16 


A CERTAIN MAN 


stopped in order to recover her lost breath, she being of 
full habit. Half way across the field the “ girl’s ” feet 
slipped from under her on the greasy slope and, with a 
despairing shriek, she sat down heavily upon a wet tussock 
studded with thistles in eight holes. His aunt, who invari¬ 
ably accomplished what she set out to do, was the only one 
who never faltered in her stride and, before he could take 
to the water, she was upon him and the next minute, despite 
his kicks and struggles, he was being borne bedwards 
decently draped in her shawl. 

So engrossed in his thoughts was John that he narrowly 
escaped having another encounter with a bus in Piccadilly 
and it was only the candid opinion of its driver as to the 
blameworthiness of the sanguinary fools who had left the 
cage door open which brought him with a start to a realisa¬ 
tion of his surroundings. He was annoyed at the incident 
for two reasons, one being that it rudely awakened him 
out of a very pleasant day-dream, and the other that it 
made him look as if he were “ up from the country.” It 
is only your Londoner born and bred who can bear the 
stigma of being mistaken for a countryman without flinch¬ 
ing and he only does so because he knows it isn’t true. 

Safely ensconced in the Tube, however, John let his 
thoughts wander back to other outstanding events connected 
with his boyhood and young manhood at Porth Ros — that 
was the name of the place where the little gray stone house 
was in which his mother and aunt still lived, though visitors 
“from England,” who were ignorant folk and couldn’t be ex¬ 
pected to know better, would persist in calling it Rose Porth. 

He passed lightly from one incident to another, like a 
bird hopping from twig to twig, until at length he arrived 
at one where he paused to consider and, considering, felt an 
odd tickling sensation in the region of the top button of his 
waistcoat for it concerned that period when he had fallen 
in love for the first time and, although a man may live to 
be ninety and bury three wives in the intervals of a 
chequered career, he never entirely recovers from the 



A CERTAIN MAN. 17 

effects of that original drop of the juice of “ the little west¬ 
ern flower ” laid by Puck on his sleeping eyelids. 

John had been twenty-two when this wonderful event 
happened to him and, contrary to all precedent, this first 
love had, instead of being considerably his senior, been his 
junior by five years. Biddy, her name was, Biddy Mercer, 
and her mother had taken a furnished house at Porth Ros 
for the summer. Acquaintanceship followed as a natural 
course. At a small place like that everybody soon got to 
know everybody else. It was one big jolly party that fore¬ 
gathered on the beach each morning to bathe, or prawn, 
or play hockey on the wide firm stretch of sand left by the 
retreating tide, or just sit on the rocks basking in the warm 
sunshine. 

And if these occupations palled, there was always the 
Headland to walk out on to, with the sea deep down below 
you on either hand and the spumes of foam, like great balls 
of swansdown, blowing about, and the spray wetting your 
face so that your lips, if you licked them, were salt to the 
taste, while, at the end of the jutting promontory, it was 
possible to clamber down the shelving rocks almost to the 
very edge of the water where you could lie and watch the 
breakers thundering at your feet until it seemed as if they 
were some species of savage beast trying to get at and 
devour you. 

Or there were dark mysterious caves to explore where 
one always felt one might come upon the body of a ship¬ 
wrecked mariner who, of course, would be swarthy of com¬ 
plexion with gold rings in his ears and a red kerchief 
tightly bound round his head and fastened in a knot at the 
nape of the neck. His eyes would be wide open and glassy 
and staring and a few strands of oozy green seaweed would 
be mingled with the locks of coarse black hair which, 
escaping from the confining head-dress, hung over his 
cheeks, while a trickle of water would, in defiance of all the 
laws of nature, perpetually rim out from between his hang¬ 
ing jaws. 



18 


A CERTAIN MAN 


To John, of course, all these things were familiar joys 
but he never tired of them and one of his greatest pleasures 
had been to act as showman to newcomers. He felt all the 
importance of the proprietor of a large landed estate with¬ 
out any of that harassed individual’s responsibilities. 

This first love affair of John’s could hardly be described 
as having been of a wildly passionate nature. To begin 
with, it was entirely one-sided which, since John was not in 
the least like the strong silent man of fiction, rather dis¬ 
counted the possibility of any powerful love scene in the 
unfolding of the drama. Silent he was, it is true, but it was 
the silence of weakness, not strength. The presence of his 
beloved had a stultifying effect on him which rendered him 
tongue-tied. Like the unfortunate lady in “ Twelfth 
Night ” he never told his love and felt a sneaking sense of 
injury that he could trace no signs of the fact in his per¬ 
sonal appearance. When he examined his features in the 
glass, which he did anxiously and daily, he was totally 
unable to diagnose the presence of any worm in the bud. 
Concealment had not the slightest effect on his facial con¬ 
tours, possibly because his appetite remained unimpaired. 
The nearest approach to sentiment he ever arrived at was 
the evening before Biddy was going home when, in the dim 
religious light of a cavern, he, with one of those desperate 
acts of presumption which a shy man sometimes achieves 
when driven, had attempted to kiss her. Even that, how¬ 
ever, had not been an unqualified success with her for, at 
the critical moment, Biddy, no doubt reading his purpose 
in the determined set of his mouth, had turned her head 
away so that the kiss which it was intended should awaken 
the sleeping princess landed on the tip of her left ear, and 
the princess, who hadn’t been asleep at all really but only 
pretending, said, with a certain show of temper, “ Don’t, 
John. I hate being mauled.” 

There had been various more articulate affairs of the 
heart since then. There had been a girl in the tobacconist’s 
at Oxford and an anaemic parish worker during his first 



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20 


A CERTAIN MAN 


a bathing dress, advanced to meet him with outstretched 
hand, while another equally weird creature attired in a 
short skirt reaching to just above her knees and a ginger- 
hued jumper which followed the lines of her untrammeled 
figure with embarrassing fidelity, stood on the hearth rug 
scowling at the intruder. 

“ I thought it was Mrs. Rycroft,” said his godmother 
after the first greetings during which he discovered that it 
was Mrs. Chaworth and that he had not got into the wrong 
flat by mistake. “ Miss Bee, my godson, Mr. Ffoulkes. 
Miss Bee kindly superintends my exercises.” The appari¬ 
tion on the hearth rug scowled more deeply than ever and 
John, taking it to be a recognition of his existence, bowed 
nervously in its direction. 

“ Well, I’ll be getting,” said the apparition to Mrs. 
Chaworth, paying no further attention to the evidently 
unwelcome third. “ There’s no use in my stopping any 
longer.” 

It strode to the door which John opened for it with a 
feeling of profound thankfulness. 

“ You’ve got that abdomen exercise all right now, haven’t 
you?” it inquired peremptorily over its shoulder as it went 
out. 

John understood that his godmother had got the abdomen 
exercise all right now. 

“ Right-oh,” shouted the apparition in a stentorian voice 
from the hall as the door closed, “ do it in front of your 
open window with no clothes on.” 

The last sentence came somewhat muffled but perfectly 
audible through the door which John had closed as hur¬ 
riedly as was compatible with good manners at the mention 
of the word abdomen, recollecting his godmother’s bated 
breath when she had to say “ stomach,” but when he went 
over to where she had seated herself he found her quite cool 
and collected, so presumably “ abdomen ” was a more 
recondite mode of expression than the other or else associa¬ 
tion with Miss Bee had broadened Mrs. Chaworth’s outlook 



A CERTAIN MAN 


21 


which John thought was the more likely judging by his one 
brief encounter with that lady. 

“ How you have grown, John/’ his godmother observed 
fatuously as he took the vacant place beside her on the 
sofa. It semed to surprise her that he was not still in a 
sailor suit as he had been when they last met. 

“ Well, you know, it’s going on for thirty years since you 
saw me,” he said, sternly repressing his very natural desire 
to stare at her extraordinary get-up. The hybrid garment in 
conjunction with the fiery wig proved an almost irresistible 
attraction and he had to exercise all his self-control to 
keep his eyes from wandering in their direction. 

It really seemed as though his thoughts communicated 
themselves to Mrs. Chaworth for she said abruptly: 

“ I don’t generally appear in the drawing room in this 
— er*— dress. I only popped in to show Miss Bee a letter 
in this week’s copy of Health. Fullalove didn’t know or 
she would have shown you into the Snuggery.” 

Fullalove was evidently the misnomer of the austere 
person who had admitted John. Remembering Miss Bee’s 
parting injunction it relieved him to learn that Mrs. Cha- 
worth was not in the habit of conducting her exercises in 
an apartment where she was liable to be interrupted by 
the incursion of unexpected visitors. 

“ I’ll rim and change. I shan’t be ten minutes. You 
must amuse yourself till I come back, and if Mrs. Rycroft 
comes while I’m gone just explain to her and ask her to 
excuse me.” 

This speech took her to the door, as the producer of a 
play would say, and John heaved a sigh of relief as she 
vanished through it, leaving him alone to recover from the 
tension of the last five minutes, though he sincerely trusted 
she would be back before Mrs. Rycroft, who was evidently 
due, arrived. Whether she were an invited guest or a 
dressmaker or another superintendent of Mrs. Chaworth’s 
exercises he had no idea but he fervently hoped not the 
latter. 



22 


A CERTAIN MAN 


While he waited he got up and standing on the hearthrug 
looked about him. The room resembled nothing so much 
as a bazaar ready for the opening ceremony. 

The floor space was littered with small tables loaded with 
perfectly useless articles of no intrinsic value and certainly 
of no beauty. Mrs. ChawortlTs hobby appeared to be the 
picking up of unconsidered trifles and John would not have 
given a five-pound note for the whole lot put together, 
indeed he would not have accepted them as a gift if they 
had been offered. The walls bristled with shelves and 
brackets each holding their complement of rubbish while 
as to the mantelpiece it simply, as John expressed it in his 
own mind, “ teemed ” with odds and ends. There was 
what, at first sight, looked like a petrified round of under¬ 
done toast with streaks of soot on it but which, on closer 
examination, proved to be a highly polished segment of 
olive tree with the words “ Mount Olivet ” inscribed upon 
its surface in black lettering. Next to this stood an ivory 
model of the leaning tower of Pisa about four inches high, 
which was flanked by one of those spiral shells that have 
the appearance of suffering from a severe attack of measles 
and in which, if you hold them to your ear, you are popu¬ 
larly supposed to be able to hear the sound of the sea. 
Against this, cheek by jowl, was a minute jug of that ware 
known as Silicon bearing the arms of the City of Peterboro’ 
(why Peterboro’? John wondered) superimposed, or what¬ 
ever the correct heraldic term may be, on an azure blue 
shield. A snake, composed of some kind of fibrous sub¬ 
stance, reared its head with the aid of a white glass-topped 
pin and put out a red-flannel tongue at its neighbour, a 
bronze stag beetle. An Eastern tear-bottle coquetted with 
the cast-off shoe of a Chinese belle, who must have suffered 
terribly to achieve her ends, and the lion, represented by 
one of its claws, lay down alongside the Dresden lamb which 
gambolled round the remaining foot of a shepherdess of 
German extraction. 

That was as far as John had reached in his survey when 



A CERTAIN MAN 


23 


the door was thrown open and the voice of Fullalove said 
“ Mrs. Ry croft ” in tones of strong disapproval. 

John hastily fitted his face with a smile appropriate to 
the occasion and prepared to frame an apology for his 
godmother’s temporary absence in suitable terms but, at 
sight of the figure who followed the unfamiliar name into 
the room he paused, the smile appropriate to the occasion 
died away, to be instantly replaced by a genuine one of 
incredulous but delighted recognition, and forgetting every 
word of Mrs. Chaworth’s message he went forward with 
both hands held out. 

“Biddy!” he ejaculated in a tone of voice which even 
{dumbed the depths of the aloof Fullalove's consciousness 
and caused her to cast a curious look in his direction. 

Mrs. Rycroft, advancing over the carpet, taken aback at 
hearing her Christian name issue from the lips of someone 
whom she had taken to be an entire stranger, arrested her 
progress for a bare second. The halt was only momentary 
for she recognised John almost immediately. 

“ Why, John! But how delightful and how surprising 
too!” she exclaimed, coming up to him and laying her two 
gloved hands in his outstretched palms in friendly fashion. 
“ I didn't recognise you for a second or two.” 

“ I recognised you the very second you came in,” John 
said, half reproachfully. “ It was only this afternoon I was 
thinking about you and those jolly days at Forth Ros when 
we — when I — ” 

“When we were both young and you were — foolish.” 

Biddy finished the sentence for him with the faintest sus¬ 
picion of a smile playing about her mouth but in her eyes 
there was a look of far-away remembrance and in her cheeks 
the colour deepened the tiniest shade. 

A feeling of something akin to exultation stole over John 
at the realisation that if he had not forgotten the “foolish¬ 
ness." neither had she, but it died away again before it had 
time to do more than just give him a warm glow of satis¬ 
faction at the thought. It was like passing one of those 




24 


A CERTAIN MAN 


braziers of red-hot charcoal which are sometimes to be 
seen outside a watchman’s hut at the side of a road which 
is being repaired. The heat envelopes you for a brief 
moment and the next you are in the cold again before 
there is time for the warmth of it to thaw the frozen blood 
in your veins. 

What was the earthly use of raking out dead embers in 
the hope of finding a spark? 

Besides, everything was different now. It was twelve 
years since John had seen or heard anything of Biddy and 
a great deal can happen in twelve years. For one thing an 
unknown person called Rycroft had happened which rather 
knocked the bottom out of sentiment. 

Who, and what was Rycroft, John wondered. When and 
where had Biddy met him? At what period during those 
twelve years, of which he possessed no knowledge, had this 
Rycroft wooed and won Biddy — Biddy, who “ hated being 
mauled”? 

He longed to blurt out all these queries, to question her 
point-blank, to demand from her an explanation of all the 
circumstances connected with the arrival of Rycroft upon 
the scenes, but he could hardly do so in the first five min¬ 
utes of their meeting again, butting into her private affairs 
without any preliminaries, and yet any ordinary conversa¬ 
tion seemed an anticlimax. 

It was Biddy who broke the silence. 

“ They were good days, weren’t they?” she said. “ That’s 
the worst of it. One doesn’t always recognise good days 
when one sees them. One needs bad days now and then 
by which to set a standard. I suppose after all it’s just a 
question of comparison.” 

She pulled off her gloves meditatively as she spoke 
and John caught sight of the plain gold band gleaming 
on the third finger of her left hand. He nodded his head 
towards it. 

“ You’re married,” he said. 

Biddy followed the direction of his movement and rais- 



A CERTAIN MAN. 25 

ing her hand looked curiously at the ring on her finger 
almost as though she was seeing it for the first time. 

“I’m a widow,” she said shortly, letting her hand drop 
to her side again. 

“ Oh, I — I’m sorry,” John stammered out. “I — I 
didn’t know. I — I wouldn’t have said anything if I’d 
known.” 

Biddy sat down on the sofa, putting her gloves and the 
little gold mesh bag she carried on the back of it, then: 

“ You needn’t be sorry, John,” she said deliberately. 
“Let’s leave it at that, shall we?” 

There was a little uncomfortable pause before she spoke 
again, and when she did it was on a totally different 
subject. 

“ Tell me about Porth Ros,” she said. “ Do you ever go 
there now?” 

“ Whenever I can. My mother and aunt still live there. 
I believe they’d die if they were transplanted. I can only 
get there for my holiday so I don’t see very much of it, 
in fact my aunt declares I’ve ceased to belong to the place 
and classes me among the trippers. It’s become a peren¬ 
nial joke with her to offer to take me to see the caves. She 
just does it to rile me.” 

“ And does she succeed?” asked Biddy. 

“ I’m afraid she does,” John confessed. “ You see I love 
it all so that I simply can’t stand the slightest suggestion 
that I and the place are not one.” 

“ I see,” said Biddy. “ You like to regard Porth Ros as 
a sort of figurative spouse. By the way, you’re not mar¬ 
ried, I suppose?” 

John laughed. 

“ No. I’m not married,” he said. “ But it’s hardly 
polite to assume the fact quite so positively.” 

“I’m really being frightfully complimentary,” she de¬ 
clared. “ I assumed the fact so positively, as you put it, 
because you look so absurdly young and fresh. Oh, I 
don’t mean green” she hastened to add, as John uttered 



26 


A CERTAIN MAN 


a sound of protest. “I mean that if you were married 
you’d have more of a married air about you.” 

“ And what may that consist of?” enquired John. 

“Oh, I don’t know. One can’t put those things into 
words. ’ It’s a sort of will-the-Missus-make-the-housekeep- 
ing-money-last-out-the-week look. A married man always 
acquires it unless he’s so rich it doesn’t matter. Are you 
rich, John?” 

“No, I’m not,” said John emphatically. “Are you?” 

“ Yes, I am,” replied Biddy shortly. “ Beastly rich.” 

It was at this point in the conversation that Mrs. Cha- 
worth returned upon the scenes, properly dressed. 

She kissed Biddy and sat down beside her. 

“ Disgraceful of me not to have been here when you 
arrived,” she said brightly. “I hope you two introduced 
yourselves to one another and that John gave my message 
to you, Biddy?” 

“ What message?” asked Biddy. 

“ I’m afraid I clean forgot about it, Aunt Maggie,” John 
said, addressing her by the ridiculous name he had been 
taught to call her in the days of childhood. “ As for intro¬ 
ducing ourselves,” he went on, “ we did that ages ago on 
the beach at Porth Ros.” 

“ You mean, I suppose, that you were introduced,” Mrs. 
Chaworth said, moving an amendment. 

“ No, I don’t,” John said cheerfully. “ As far as I remem¬ 
ber there was nobody else there to do it for us so we just did 
it for ourselves.” 

“ /rcdeed.” 

Had John said “ We clicked on the pier at Brighton ” the 
statement could not have been received with more obvious 
and sterner disapproval. If Mrs. Chaworth had been a 
porcupine she would, at this juncture, have stuck out her 
quills. Being a mere human being she had to content her¬ 
self with the inflection of a single syllable. 

John, in imagination, could see every hair on her head 
struggling to stand on end under the weight of that pre- 



A CERTAIN MAN 


27 


posterous wig. It was a curious reversion to type, he 
reflected. You may paint your face and tire your head. 
You may even look out of a window while, with nothing 
on, you do exercises to keep your figure down, but if you 
have an Early Victorian mind, it is bound, eventually, to 
triumph over late Georgian matter. 

In Mrs. Chaworth 7 s youth it was permissible to pick up 
shells and seaweed on the beach but not a chance acquaint¬ 
ance of the opposite sex. She knew that nowadays there 
was a laxity on these matters for which she blamed, in 
equal proportions, mixed bathing, the war, and women 
having the vote, but it was a thing she had never been able 
to accustom herself to, although she made gallant efforts to 
appear up-to-date and it was only when taken unawares, 
as on this occasion, that she gave herself away and estab¬ 
lished the fact that the twentieth-century tolerance on which 
she prided herself was but a thin veneer laid on the top 
of nineteenth-century prejudices which, in certain lights, 
shewed through. 

It was the look of astonishment in her godson’s face, 
coupled with what sounded suspiciously like a smothered 
laugh from Biddy, that brought her back with a start to 
her role of an ultra-modem woman of the world which, for 
the moment, she had forgotten to sustain. 

u I suppose you felt it was a case of 4 He who will not 
when he may/ eh, John?” she said with ponderous playful¬ 
ness, adroitly recovering her mental balance. 

“ S omethin g like that, Aunt Maggie,” John answered 
lamely. 

“ And you never met again until you met this afternoon 
in my drawing room,’’ exclaimed Mrs. Chaworth dramati¬ 
cally. She was given to investing the most commonplace 
happenings of daily life with a halo of romance which John 
felt was, in this case, sailing rather too near the wind for 
his liking. 

It was Biddy who saved the situation. 

u On the contrary. We met constantly. My mother had 




28 


A CERTAIN MAN 


a furnished house for the summer so we were practically 
next door to one another. Mrs. Ffoulkes kindly called on my 
mother,” she said in calm even tones. 

“ Oh! Then it was years ago. Before the war,” said 
Mrs. Chaworth. “ Why, you must both of you have been 
mere children. You were married in 1912, Biddy, on St. 
Valentine’s day. I remember thinking it such a romantic 
date.” 

“Terribly romantic, wasn’t it?” There was a note of 
harshness in Biddy’s voice which did not escape John’s 
notice and he speculated within himself as to what lay 
behind it all. That her marriage had not been altogether 
a success was evident. He had gathered that much from 
her way of saying “ You needn’t be sorry, John,” when he 
had expressed his sorrow at hearing she was left a widow. 

“ But then it was all so romantic,” babbled on Mrs. 
Chaworth. 

“ Colonel Rycroft was the V. C., you know, John, and a 
great friend of your Uncle Henry’s.” 

Uncle Henry was Mrs. Chaworth’s late husband and a 
mythological character as far as John was concerned, having 
died several years before the latter’s birth. 

It was a little difficult to discover whether the romance 
was due to the V. C. or the friendship to Uncle Henry or a 
mixture of the two. John threw a hurried glance at a 
portrait hanging over his godmother’s escritoire and de¬ 
cided that, if it was a representation of Uncle Henry as he 
supposed, the romance did not lie in that direction. 

Uncle Henry, if the artist had portrayed him faithfully, 
which John saw no reason to doubt, had been a stout, 
florid individual with a luxuriant growth of brown whisker 
and a beard flowing half-way down his white waistcoat. A 
watch chain, composed of massive gold links, kept him, as 
it appeared, from bursting bounds. He stood beside a table 
and with one podgy hand restrained the impetuosity of a 
large volume lying at the corner of it while the small 
portion of face which was unimpeded with hair exuded a 



A CERTAIN MAN 


29 


self-satisfied complacency. Judging by external evidence 
there were certainly no grounds for connecting romance and 
Uncle Henry so it must be to do with the V. C., John 
decided. 

No doubt Mrs. Chaworth, regardless of Biddy’s very 
obvious desire not to pursue the subject, would have gone 
on to explain in detail the reasons why romance was so 
specially associated with this particular marriage, she being 
one of those women who worry a sentiment as a terrier 
worries a rat, but happily the arrival of tea at this moment 
caused a diversion and the talk drifted into other channels. 

At half-past five Biddy got up to go. 

“ Couldn’t you come back and dine, John?” she said, 
ignoring the hand he held out. “ We’ve such heaps to tell 
one another. You don’t mind my dragging him away, 
Margaret?” 

She seemed to take it for granted that he would not 
refuse and indeed he had no wish to do so but he glanced 
down at his clothes doubtfully. 

“ I’m not dressed, Biddy,” he said. 

“ As if that matters,” she returned impatiently. “ You 
surely aren’t going to make that an excuse? Good heavens, 
if you only knew how sick I am of immaculately dressed 
young men! For all I care you’d be welcome to sit down 
to dinner in Porth kit, only I suppose, if you did, my butler 
would give notice.” 

“ What is — er — ‘ Porth kit ’?” enquired Mrs. Chaworth 
with pardonable curiosity. 

“ Porth kit, my dear Margaret, is a combination of the 
least possible amount of clothing with the greatest possible 
amount of savoir jaire. It consists of shorts, shirt and 
sand-shoes,” Biddy told her. 

“ But John couldn’t go about in London with nothing 
more on than that,” protested John’s godmother, labouring 
the point. For one awful second it seemed as if the words 
“ it wouldn’t be nice ” were hovering on her lips, in which 
case John would inevitably have disgraced himself by laugh- 



30 


A CERTAIN MAN 


ing. Luckily Mrs. Chaworth remembered her pose of 
woman of the world in time to check further comment and 
allowed them to make their adieux without alluding to the 
subject again. 

Outside the door of the Mansions a car was standing 
which, even to John’s unpracticed eye, appeared the last 
word in luxurious comfort, and, as they emerged, the chauf¬ 
feur, after a rapid touch to the peak of his cap, flung open 
the door. 

Biddy got in followed by John and the man arranged the 
rug over their knees and awaited his orders. 

“ Home, Rands, please,” Biddy said. 

The man shut the door, climbed into his seat, and the 
car glided off. 



CHAPTER III 


“ Well. Out with them, John,” Biddy said. 

“ Out with what?” John enquired. 

“ With all those questions that have been itching to come 
out for the last hour and a half.” 

“ How do you know that?” 

“My dear John! Don’t be foolish. The last time we 
met, twelve years ago (twelve years is quite a big slice out 
of one’s life, John), I was a gawky schoolgirl with my hair 
hanging down my back and about as much knowledge of 
life as a kitten with its eyes just open. Since then the books 
have been put into my hands, John, and I’ve read them and 
I’ve found it’s true that he that increaseth knowledge 
increaseth sorrow also. I’ve not enjoyed my lessons. I 
never did learn easily.” 

“ Lessons are always harder when one doesn’t want to 
learn,” John said. “ The war was a cruel schoolmaster, but 
it taught us a lot, because it forced us to pay attention and 
wouldn’t let us scamp things.” 

Biddy’s hands, lying loosely on the outside of the rug 
which covered their knees, suddenly clenched. 

“ The war! What did the war do for me — except make 
me stand in the corner with my face to the wall? The war 
taught me nothing!” Biddy exclaimed with an undercurrent 
of bitterness in her voice which John was quick to detect. 

“ One sometimes learns things by standing in the corner 
with one’s face to the wall,” he said gently. 

“ What things?” she demanded fiercely. 

“ Discipline.” 

“Or rebellion. That’s the antithesis of discipline, isn’t 
it? Yours is the parson’s point of view, John.” Biddy 
gave a little quick sigh. “ Oh, dear! How we’ve both 
changed in these twelve years.” 

31 


32 


A CERTAIN MAN 


John shook his head. 

“You haven’t changed as much as you think you have, 
Biddy,” he said. 

“ But don’t let us go on talking abstracts. I want to 
know facts. We were rather good pals in those old days. 
Couldn’t you — trust me?” 

“ I’m a beast,” Biddy said impulsively. “ I’m sorry if 
I seemed to sneer at you for living up to your profession. 
I didn’t mean it that way. I can give you the history of 
all that’s happened to me since we last saw one another, 
only without footnotes I’m afraid,— at any rate for the 
present.” 

“ I don’t like footnotes, anyway,” John said. “ They 
confound the issue.” 

“ Well then, if I seem to pass some rather harsh judg¬ 
ments you won’t on that account judge me harshly, will 
you? You see, I can only speak of things from my own 
point of view and it’s quite possible my vision may be de¬ 
fective. My mother — ” She broke off hurriedly and went 
off at a tangent, “ John couldn’t you just ask me the things 
you wanted to know and let me answer them?” 

“ Would it be easier, Biddy?” John asked. 

“ Yes, I think it would,” Biddy confessed. 

“ Right-oh,” John said. “ Well, Biddy, first of all, what 
about your mother?” 

“ Mother died in 1916. Poor darling, she was fifty-one 
but she would insist on working at an all-night canteen and 
wearing herself out. She got pneumonia and simply hadn’t 
the strength to make a fight for life.” 

“ Anyhow she died at her post, Biddy. I don’t know that 
a death like that is the worst thing life has to offer,” John 
said. 

“ I’m sure it isn’t,” declared Biddy vehemently. “ At least 
one dies in the open and not with one’s face to the wall.” 

“ And you, Biddy. What about you?” 

“ That’s too general a question, John. What do you 
want to know about me?” 



A CERTAIN MAN 


33 


“ About this mostly.” He touched her glove on that part 
of it which concealed her wedding ring. 

11 That was really question one, wasn’t it? I saw it in 
your eyes when that silly woman (I beg your pardon, John. 
I forgot she was your godmother), when Mrs. Chaworth, 
then, was meandering on about it being a 1 romance.’ 
There wasn’t much romance about it, unless to marry a 
man forty years older than yourself is romantic.” 

“Forty years older!” In spite of himself John could 
not help letting his astonishment show itself. 

“ I was nineteen, John. People have no business to allow 
girls of nineteen to get married. How can they know? 
How can they know, if they’ve never been taught? Oh, 
I’ll own it seemed romantic at the time. I met Colonel 
Rycroft at a house in the country where I was staying and 
I suppose I felt flattered when he singled me out for atten¬ 
tion. It made me thrill when we were out anywhere 
together and I saw people nudging one another. I knew 
they were saying ‘Look! That’s Rycroft, the V. C., you 
know.’ And when he asked me to marry him I only thought 
how wonderful it was that he should have chosen me out of 
all the girls who would have jumped at the chance. I 
never thought of what marriage really meant, or of the 
difference in our ages. Spiteful people said that I was mar¬ 
rying him for his money. He was very well off, you see. 
But it wasn’t that. The money part never entered my 
head.” 

“ I know it never would,” John said soothingly. 

“Well, we were married in the following February — on 
the £ romantic ’ date you’ve heard such a lot about from 
Margaret, and — we didn’t live happily ever after. My 
house of dreams was soon shattered — my house of dreams 
built on his reputation. I had forgotten he was a man as 
well as a soldier and that he might have another reputation 
besides his military one. I was soon undeceived. There 
were plenty to see to that. To do him justice, I believe he 
was what is called ‘ faithful ’ to me, but the past was taken 


34 


A CERTAIN MAN 


from me and, though I suppose it’s silly and too much to 
expect, I think a man’s past belongs to his wife as much as 
a woman’s to her husband.” 

“ Will you forgive me if I say something that sounds 
impertinent?” John asked. “ It isn’t intended to be.” 

“ Why, of course! I trust you, John. If I didn’t I 
should hardly have told you the things that I have, should 
I? You’re a privileged person,” Biddy answered. “ What 
is it you want to say?” 

“ Well then, I think, you know, that your ‘house of 
dreams ’ was built on sand if you’ll forgive my saying so. 
The wind blew and it toppled over at once. If it had been 
built on rock there might have been some windows blown 
in but the foundations would have stood. Perhaps you’ll 
say, as you did before, that I’m looking at it from the par¬ 
son’s point of view, but it’s the right one, Biddy.” 

“ By ‘ rock ’ you mean — what exactly?” 

“ I mean love. Not the blind love which sees no fault 
because it lacks the power of vision, but the love which sees 
clearly and forgives because it is love.” 

“ Forgives even the faults against itself?” 

“ That’s a hard saying, John,” Biddy said, with a little 
tremour in her voice. “ We’re only human beings when 
all’s said and done.” 

“ But love’s divine,” John said softly. 

“ Then does love, the love you talk of, condone the past?” 

“ There is no past in love,” insisted John. “ If it’s the 
genuine article it starts with a clean slate. It just takes a 
wet sponge and rubs out all the old marks.” 

“ But supposing the slate doesn’t stay — clean?” 

“ Then you have to wash it again,— up to seventy times 
seven if necessary,” said John cheerfully. “ But if that’s 
likely to happen it’s as well to keep a wet sponge handy.” 

In spite of her efforts to keep it back a little smile of 
amusement spread over Biddy’s face. 

“ What’s the joke?” asked John. 

“ I was thinking how I always hated washing up. Do 



A CERTAIN MAN 


35 


you remember at our picnics? It was invariably 1 you 
wash, I’ll wipe ’ with me. I suppose, even in those days, 
I was, unconsciously, a type,” she said ruefully. 

John laughed. 

“ One of these days, Biddy, you’ll enjoy it,— if there’s 
anything to wash, that’s to say,” he added. 

There was a pause in the conversation after this remark 
and he wondered whether he had offended her, but at the 
end of a few minutes’ silence she spoke again. 

“ And all this time we’ve been talking about me and 
my affairs and I haven’t heard a word about you. Tell 
me.” 

So John told her what there was to tell, which wasn’t a 
great deal, and presently the car drew up opposite the 
door of a house in one of the streets just off Park Lane. 

“ Here we are,” Biddy said. 

The chauffeur ran up the steps and rang the bell and 
almost before his finger was off it the door opened and a 
butler appeared. 

“ Mr. Ffoulkes will be dining, Barnby,” Biddy said to the 
man, when she and John had got out of the car and 
passed into the hall. 

“ Very good, Madame,” Barnby said, taking John’s hat 
and stick out of his hands. “ Then am I to understand 
that there will be four extra to dinner instead of three?” 

“ Four, Barnby?” 

“ I understood from Miss Bellamy (Barnby apparently 
always either understood things or wished to know whether 
he was to understand them) that Mrs. Panter, Sir Charles 
Saunders, and Mr. Franklin were dining tonight at seven- 
thirty and that the party was proceeding afterwards to the 
theatre.” 

“ Bother!” said Biddy, “ I clean forgot. What a beastly 
nuisance!” 

“ It’s all right, Biddy, Don’t worry about me,” John 
said. “I’ll sheer off.” 

“ You’ll do nothing of the kind,” Biddy ordered. “ See 



36 


A CERTAIN MAN 


there’s a room ready for Mr. Ffoulkes to wash his hands 
and show him where it is when the dressing gong rings,” 
she went on, turning to Barnby. 

“ Very good, Madame.” 

“ Come along upstairs and see Belle,” she said, moving 
towards the staircase which was through an archway at 
the back of the square hall. 

“Who exactly is Belle?” enquired John, as he followed 
Biddy up the broad flight of shallow stairs. It sounded 
ominously like a Pekinese he thought but he could not 
imagine Biddy as the possessor of a Pekinese. Or could it 
be there was a child? It had never occurred to him that 
such might be the case, though what more natural when 
you came to consider. Of course that was it. 

Biddy did not appear to hear his question and John did 
not repeat it for he made so sure his last idea was the 
correct one that it did not seem worth while to do so. 

It was therefore with something almost approaching a 
shock that he discovered “ Belle ” to be a middle-aged 
woman with gray hair and a red face instead of a small girl 
with golden curls and pink and white cheeks. 

She was dressed quite plainly in a gown of some dark 
material and at first sight gave the impression of being just 
an ordinary humdrum spinster of mature years with 
nothing remarkable or distinctive about her, but when 
she came forward to greet him, in response to Biddy’s 
casual introduction which simply consisted of the words 
“ I’ve brought John back with me, Belle ” and he felt the 
steady clear brown eyes fixed on his as though trying to 
pierce the mask of convention and see what manner of man 
it hid, John realised the force behind the quiet exterior 
which at once lifted her out of the category of the common¬ 
place and ordinary and put her in a class apart. Her 
examination of John appeared to be satisfactory for when 
it was completed she held out her hand to him with a 
friendly little smile. 

“ How do you do,” she said, nodding, “ and would you 



A CERTAIN MAN 


37 


mind telling me your name? I can’t very well start off by 
calling you John, can I?” 

“ But of course you know one another,” exclaimed Biddy. 
“ Didn’t you meet at Porth Ros? Oh, of course not. How 
silly of me. It was in the holidays wasn’t it, so you weren’t 
there, Belle. John, this is Miss Bellamy who assisted in the 
guidance of my careless footsteps in the slippery paths of 
youth. This is Mr. Ffoulkes, Belle, who taught me to swim, 
so you have much in common. You’ll be able to compare 
notes.” 

“ So now we know the worst of one another, Mr. 
Ffoulkes,” said Miss Bellamy, with a twinkle in her eye 
which very nearly amounted to a wink, “ come and sit down 
and let us unburden ourselves.” 

“ You can do that when I go to dress,” Biddy said. 
“ Are Carrie and Charles and Reggie Franklin dining here 
tonight, Belle? Barnby says so.” 

“ My dear Biddy, you asked them and they accepted, so 
I imagine they are,” replied Miss Bellamy, picking up her 
knitting which lay on a table beside her chair. 

“ Drat ’em,” said Biddy inelegantly. 

“ You always were the soul of hospitality, dearest,” mur¬ 
mured Miss Bellamy, spreading her work on her lap and 
examining it critically. 

“I — I’ll shake you in a minute, Belle,” Biddy said with 
emphasis. “ You can’t even be decently sympathetic. 
Here’s John whom I haven’t seen for years and years and 
the very first time we do meet a crowd of dull people barges 
in and spoils it all. It’s too bad.” 

“ I’ve heard a good many things said about Mrs. Panter 
but I can’t recollect that dullness was ever a charge levelled 
against her,” observed Miss Bellamy dryly. 

“ Oh, don’t cavil, Belle,” said Biddy impatiently. “ You 
know quite well what I mean. Do put away that beastly 
knitting and be intelligent.” 

“ Once, Biddy, when you were a little girl,” said Miss 
Bellamy, knitting on imperturbably, “ I found you with a 



38 


A CERTAIN MAN 


pot of caviare purloined from the sideboard. You were 
busily engaged in spreading some of the contents on a slice 
of bread and jam to whet your appetite. I didn’t interfere 
because I was, and still am, a firm believer in the efficacy of 
a lesson taught by experience. You ate the filthy com¬ 
pound with the results I had anticipated and that was your 
last attempt at gastronomic research.” 

“ I remember. I was sick,” Biddy said with a grimace. 

“ You were,” said Miss Bellamy grimly. 

“ But what on earth has that got to do with Carrie and 
the others dining here tonight?” 

“ It has to do with the fact that you learned your lesson 
so thoroughly that the mere thought of a mixture of jam 
and caviare still makes you feel sick.” 

“ I’m sure you’re being frightfully clever, dear, but I 
haven’t a notion what you’re driving at,” Biddy said. 
“ Have you, John?” 

“ I’ve a sort of idea,” John answered. 

“ Do explain, then.” 

“ I suppose what Miss Bellamy is trying to point 
out,-” 

(“ Trying , you’ll notice, darling,” interpolated Biddy flip¬ 
pantly.) 

“-is that I represent the jam while your other guests 

are the caviare, or vice-versa.” 

“ I see. You two ought to get on well with one another. 
You both seem fond of talking in parables. Personally, 
Belle, I think you’re being rather offensive. These horrid 
details of my infantile ailments and their causes, which 
you appear to take such a delight in raking up, can’t 
possibly interest John. What a loathsome child I must have 
been.” 

“ You were rather,” said Miss Bellamy calmly. “ How¬ 
ever, I did wonders with the most unpromising material to 
work on.” 

“ So that’s it, is it? You’re simply trying to glorify your¬ 
self at my expense. If you ask me, I think it’s marvelous 




A CERTAIN MAN 


39 


how I’ve succeeded in effacing the defects of my up¬ 
bringing,” Biddy exclaimed haughtily. “ No, dear, the 
subject’s closed,” as Miss Bellamy was about to retort. 
“Don’t let us refer to it again. I forgave you long ago. 
Heavens! It’s half-past six. I must go and dress for the 
caviare, so you and John can unburden yourselves. Good¬ 
bye for the present.” 

When Biddy had gone John came and sat down near 
Miss Bellamy, drawing up a chair to the other side of the 
small table which stood at her elbow. He was conscious, 
as he did so, that once more that penetrating gaze was 
fixed upon him but this time it had none of that critical 
aloofness which he had noticed on the previous occasion. 
It seemed rather as though she were waiting to receive his 
confidences and, in turn, to confide in him, and he had a 
sudden intuition that this woman whom, half an hour ago he 
had never even seen, never even heard of, to the best of 
his recollection, was an ally who invited his aid against some 
unknown danger which threatened. 

“ You’ve not seen Biddy for a long time?” she asked 
when he was seated. 

“ Not for twelve years,” John answered. 

Miss Bellamy nodded. 

“ Not since she married, then?” she said. 

“ No. Not since she married.” 

Miss Bellamy nodded again. 

“ You never knew Colonel Rycroft, then?” was her next 
question. 

“ Never even heard of him till today. You did, I sup¬ 
pose, know him?” 

“ I did,” she remarked grimly. 

“What was he like?” John asked. 

“ Do you mean mentally, morally or physically?” 

“ Generally speaking.” 

“ Generally speaking, he was forty years older than 
Biddy,” Miss Bellamy observed. 

“ She told me that,” John said, then paused uncertainly. 



40 


A CERTAIN MAN 


He was not sure that it was quite playing the game to repeat 
what Biddy had told him. Miss Bellamy however saved 
him the trouble of coming to a decision on this point for she 
went on with the sentence he had broken off almost in the 
very words he had on the tip of his tongue. 

“ That it was his V. C. which attracted her. So it did. 
It assumed the proportions of a halo in her eyes and daz¬ 
zled her so that she saw nothing else. It was like a person 
going along a dark country lane and meeting a car with its 
headlights on. Unfortunately the hot blood of youth which 
spurred him on to save a comrade’s life concentrated during 
the latter years of his existence in his big toe in the form 
of gout. It was a pathetic anti-climax, but, to be perfectly 
candid, I always thought him rather an unpleasant old 
gentleman and his past, apart from that one heroic episode, 
hardly bore investigation. He died the February before the 
Armistice, quite unreasonably blaming poor Biddy because 
the War Office steadily refused to recognise his repeated 
offers of help at G. H. Q. and turned a deaf ear to the 
advice which he poured in. By that time I’m afraid the 
halo was burning very dim.” 

“ But she’s happy now?” 

Miss Bellamy gave a little sigh. 

“ I wonder,” she said. “ She seems to me restless and 
dissatisfied. Mr. Ffoulkes, between you and me, I hate that 
Pan ter woman and her set. I always feel as though an 
H had got dropped out of her name and that it must 
originally have been Panther. She’s really not unlike a 
panther. She’s graceful and fascinating and, in a way of 
her own, attractive, but behind it all there’s something 
cruel and merciless, something repellent. She gives me the 
impression of being absolutely devoid of pity, and I can’t 
imagine her allowing any finer feelings to stand in the way 
of her gaining her ends. I dare say you’re thinking I’m 
just a catty old woman running down my own sex, but I’m 
fond of Biddy, Mr. Ffoulkes, and — I don’t want her to 
make another mistake.” 



A CERTAIN MAN 


41 


“ Is there any danger of her doing that?” John asked, a 
little startled. 

Miss Bellamy jabbed the needles through her knitting, 
and rolling up the work put it on the table between them. 
Then she turned to John. 

“ Biddy is a very rich woman, Mr. Ffoulkes,” she said 
earnestly, “ and the Panter woman has an impecunious 
brother. I feel I’m talking in the language of cheap melo¬ 
drama but I must if Fm to make you see thin gs as I see 
them. My anecdote of the caviare on bread was more than 
an idle reminiscence. Fm more glad than I can say that 
Biddy happened to come across you again today.” 

“I suppose I ought to feel flattered,” John said rather 
glumly. “ All the same, I don’t know if it’s exactly a 
compliment to be regarded simply in the light of one of the 
compounds of an emetic, even if it’s only a moral one.” 

“It isn’t meant to be a compliment. I’m dealing with 
facts.” Miss Bellamy said resolutely. “ When Biddy mar¬ 
ried Colonel Rycroft she found herself in a new strange 
world with none of the familiar landmarks round her, and it 
wasn't to be wondered at if she lost her bearings. She’s 
like a child who has wakened up frightened after a night¬ 
mare and who, still half asleep, cannot distinguish between 
dream and reality. I want to get her back among the old 
landmarks of which you are one, Mr. Ffoulkes.” 

“What I can’t understand,” John said, “is why her 
mother didn’t interfere about her marrying a man old 
enough to be her father. Surely she couldn’t have 
approved?” 

Miss Bellamy gave an impatient twitch of the shoulders. 

“ Mrs. Mercer was one of those silly doting mothers who, 
if her child cried for the moon, would send up post haste 
to Harrod's for one to be sent immediately by return. Add 
to that the fact that she never saw an inch beyond her nose 
and had about as much imagina tion as an unintelligent cow 
and it doesn’t leave any room for surprise that she saw 
nothing ami** in such a marriage,” she said. 




42 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“And yet she killed herself with war work. At least, 
that’s what Biddy told me.” 

“ To die of pneumonia is not a sign of intelligence,” said 
Miss Bellamy tartly. “ Please don’t think I’m belittling her 
in regard to that,” she went on more gently. “ On the con¬ 
trary I admire her more than words can say for what she 
did, for her whole-hearted service, her patriotism, her 
dogged perseverance, her refusal to give in when her health 
threatened to interfere with her duty, as she conceived it, 
to those who were fighting her battles. She died, as much 
a victim of the war as any soldier in the trenches, but it 
doesn’t alter facts.” 

“Well, what do you want me to do? I don’t quite 
understand,” John said. 

“ I don’t want you to do anything except act as a land¬ 
mark. Don’t let these people whom you’re going to meet 
tonight put you off. Stand by, that’s all I ask.” 

“ Is the — er — impecunious brother one of them?” John 
enquired with some curiosity. 

“ He is,” returned Miss Bellamy. “ That’s why I was 
delighted to hear Biddy ‘ dratting ’ them, though it’s an 
expression I should never have allowed her to use in the 
days when I was responsible for the purity of her diction.” 

“ Were you delighted? I can’t remember that you 
showed it particularly.” 

“ Possibly not. I’ve become positively Machiavellian in 
my old age, Mr. Ffoulkes.” 

“ Tell me another thing. Do you live here?” John asked. 

Miss Bellamy informed him that that was so. 

“Always?” he persisted. 

“ I came back to Biddy when she was left a widow and 
I’ve been with her ever since. Mercy on us! You aren’t, 
I hope, hinting that I’m actuated by any selfish motives in 
what I’ve been saying?” 

“ Of course I’m not,” John reassured her. “ I was only 
thinking that you must have a lot of influence with Biddy 
and wondering why you should find it necessary to call in a 



A CERTAIN MAN 


43 


consultant. You were her governess, were you not? Aren’t 
you a landmark?” 

“ It’s just because I was Biddy’s governess that I feel 
that I need to be specially careful in my actions now,” Miss 
Bellamy said. “ She’s rising thirty and a widow. She’d 
resent it, and quite naturally, too, if I treated her as if she 
were still a little girl and my pupil. I should do more harm 
than good by open criticism, so I hold my tongue and say 
nothing, though it’s pain and grief to me.” 

“ I notice, however, that you don’t deny yourself the 
solace of an occasional innuendo,” observed John. 

“ I’m only a poor weak woman,” said Miss Bellamy 
pathetically. “ You surely wouldn’t be so brutal as to 
deprive me of what little comfort I can get? In the old 
days, when you had a rush of blood to the head you sent, 
I believe, for the chirurgeon and he cupped you. I can’t 
very well send for Dr. Neame (he’s my chirurgeon) every 
time Mrs. Panter’s name is mentioned and ask him to cup 
me. For one thing he wouldn’t understand, and, for an¬ 
other, cupping has gone out of fashion. So I employ my 
own remedies to obtain relief.” 

“ What should you consider the chief characteristic of 
a landmark?” enquired John. 

“ Immobility,” said Miss Bellamy decidedly. “ My dear 
good man, I’m not asking you to strike attitudes in the 
middle of the drawing-room carpet and announce your 
intention of rescuing the innocent village maiden from the 
machinations of the villain. I’ve no reason to suppose that 
Mr. Franklin is hatching a plot to abduct Biddy forcibly, 
nor do I look upon Mrs. Panter as a modern Lucretia 
Borgia who carries daggers and packets of poison concealed 
on her person for the despatch of those who thwart her 
plans. All I want is to introduce a fresh element into 
Biddy’s life and make her realise that the simple things 
are the natural ones and that it’s in her power to get back to 
them. Otherwise I’m so afraid she may lose her sense of 
proportion and develop a kind of moral astigmatism which 



44 


A CERTAIN MAN 


will obscure her powers of vision, and, once that happens, 
the rest will follow as a matter of course. Don’t, because 
I talk like this, run away with the idea that I’m one of 
those tiresome people who hold an opinion that the world 
arrived at its zenith with their generation and has steadily 
declined with each succeeding one. I’m not. There’s a 
lot of prattle just now about the deterioration of the human 
race but it’s all nonsense. If you stir up the mud at the 
bottom of a pond with a stick it naturally rises to the 
surface and pollutes the water but nobody but a fool would 
argue from that that there was more mud in the pond 
than before. Give it time and it sinks to the bottom again 
and the water is as clear as it ever was. That’s what is 
wrong with the world today. It’s been stirred up with a 
bigger stick than usual so there’s a corresponding increase 
in the amount of slime floating on the surface. It’s no good 
trying to push it down. You only dirty your hands to no 
purpose. You’ve got to wait for it to settle.” 

“ You’re a philosopher,” John said. 

“ Philosophy is only applied common-sense,” retorted 
Miss Bellamy. 

“ Well, it’s done me good to get Mrs. Panter off my chest, 
metaphorically speaking. I feel more kindly towards her 
than I’ve done for a long time. I’ve relieved the blood 
pressure. I must follow Biddy’s example now and go and 
dress.” 

She got up as she finished talking and moved towards the 
door with John in her wake ready to open it for her. 

“ I feel an awful tramp in these clothes,” he said as he 
turned the handle. “ Biddy insisted on my staying.” 

Miss Bellamy eyed him critically. 

“If anybody lives the simple life it is a tramp,” she 
observed as she went out. 



CHAPTER IV 


John, Biddy and Miss Bellamy were already assembled 
in the drawing room when, a few minutes before half-past 
seven, Mrs. Panter arrived upon the scenes with her brother 
and Sir Charles Saunders in tow. John looked at her with 
curiosity as she came into the room, and immediately 
decided that, outside a film drama, he had never seen any¬ 
body quite so like the type of female commonly known in 
the cinema world as a “ vampire.” In fact she was such 
a faithful copy of one that he was forced to the conclusion 
that the resemblance was due to plagiarism and not 
accident. 

She was slightly below medium height with shiny black 
hair strained back from her forehead and done in a loose 
knot behind from which rose a high tortoise-shell comb of 
Spanish workmanship, while from her ears depended long 
gold filigree earrings which, at each movement of her head, 
struck her such violent blows on the neck that it was quite 
surprising they didn’t leave large bruises. Her face was 
thickly covered with some white preparation which gave her 
the appearance of having just come round after a severe 
attack of fainting, and out of this chalky expanse glimmered 
two little beady eyes, while a red gash across the lower 
part of it served to indicate the position of her mouth. 
She seemed to affect the products of Spain, for her dress, 
what there was of it, consisted of a black Spanish shawl of 
some silky material with brilliant scarlet flowers worked 
upon it and a border of fringe, wrapped tightly round her 
and fastened on the hip with a diamond brooch in the 
form of a dagger, to which John drew Miss Bellamy’s atten¬ 
tion with his eyes, a proceeding which had the result of 
making her greet Mrs. Panter with a broad smile, instead 
of the hauteur which she habitually displayed towards that 
lady. 


45 


46 


A CERTAIN MAN 


Sir Charles Saunders, who followed Mrs. Panter into the 
room, had the appearance of such extreme youth that John 
found himself idly wondering how it was that he was not 
at school in term time. He had fair hair very carefully kept 
in place by the application of some sticky compound, and 
his upper lip faintly displayed a golden down which he 
anxiously felt at intervals to make sure there was no decep¬ 
tion about it and that it was not mere imagination on his 
part. He was faultlessly dressed, but a trifle too conscious 
of the fact. 

Mrs. Panter’s brother, the last of the three new-comers, 
was very like his sister. He had the same glossy black 
hair, brushed straight back from the forehead, the same 
beady eyes, the same thin slit of a mouth. The chief dif¬ 
ference between them lay in the complexion, for his skin 
was a sort of indeterminate hue, hovering on the borders of 
lemon colour and light mud. One instinctively felt, look¬ 
ing at him, how wise Mrs. Panter was to apply white-wash 
and cover deficiencies. 

He, too, like Sir Charles, was well turned out but, unlike 
him, carried his clothes with the air of one who hardly 
knows what he is wearing, but is confident that his man has 
seen to it that every detail is correct for the particular 
occasion. When one lives in bachelor chambers and shares 
the services of a harassed and incompetent youth of 
eighteen with half a dozen fellow-sufferers it is a great 
social asset to imply tacitly that one possesses a competent 
valet of one’s very own. 

During the introductions that followed John was perfectly 
aware that Mrs. Panter, her brother, and the youthful 
baronet were taking stock of him, each trying to fit him in 
and finding a difficulty in so doing. He quite appreciated 
the difficulty for to sally forth arrayed in purple and fine 
linen and find, on arrival, another unexpected guest in the 
shape of a parson in a rather dusty gray lounge suit would 
naturally prove somewhat disconcerting. 

Mrs. Panter, who distrusted all clergymen on principle, 



A CERTAIN MAN 


47 


and unknown ones in particular, bowed tentatively. The 
youthful baronet shook hands with an assumption of hearti¬ 
ness which deceived nobody, and Mr. Franklin nodded and 
said “ how-de-do ” in tones which plainly inferred that 
John’s well-being or otherwise was a matter of complete 
indifference to him one way or the other. 

There was the usual awkward pause after the introduc¬ 
tions were effected, broken by Biddy who said, “ Mr. 
Ffoulkes is an old friend of mine ” in an unconvincing voice, 
to which Mrs. Panter replied, “ How interesting,” and 
fixed a beady stare on John’s boots as though she consid¬ 
ered he was exceeding the latitude permitted to the very 
oldest friendship by proposing to sit down to dinner in 
them. 

“ I know. Frightful, aren’t they?” John observed, thereby 
successfully spiking the enemy’s guns. Mrs. Panter was 
unaccustomed to people who openly drew attention to any 
silent ridicule she chose to administer and it rather shook 
her morale, a fact which John noted with inward satisfac¬ 
tion. She began to wonder if she had been quite right in 
her first estimate of him as a person of no account and 
hastily reconsidered her line of conduct. She decided that 
a little light badinage would not be amiss under the circum¬ 
stances. It would not commit her in any way and badinage 
could so easily be turned into baiting if subsequent events 
warranted the change of front, or the two could even be 
combined and a snub administered in the form of a pleas¬ 
antry. It would perhaps teach this uncouth young man 
that he could not measure weapons with her with im¬ 
punity, so, 

“ If you don’t mind them, why should I?” she said, smil¬ 
ing sweetly but with a glitter in her eye which neutralised 
the smile. “ Old friends have privileges which are denied 
less favoured mortals, haven’t they? It must be so nice to 
be given the freedom of anybody else’s house and feel one 
needn’t keep up appearances. I suppose you’re taking what 
they call pot-luck? So brave, in the middle of the season! 



48 


A CERTAIN MAN 


But I dare say you only ‘recognise the ecclesiastical seasons. 
So clever to remember them, I always think.” 

At this juncture Barnby arrived on the scene to announce 
that dinner was served, and Mrs. Panter was perforce 
obliged to postpone any further remarks to a future occa¬ 
sion, which relieved everybody except herself. 

John, at Biddy’s behest, offered his arm to the lady who 
condescended to place the tips of her fingers within it. 

If she intended to make him feel uncomfortable by her 
“ badinage ” she signally failed in her purpose for he 
remained quite unmoved; indeed, he was, if anything, 
rather pleased that, at their first encounter, he had drawn 
blood. 

Down in the dining room there was a slight delay while 
they were being marshaled to their places. 

John, to his content, found himself at the foot of the 
table, facing Biddy, with Mrs. Panter on his right hand 
and Miss Bellamy on his left. Beyond Mrs. Panter sat Sir 
Charles, and Mr. Franklin was between his hostess and 
Miss Bellamy. 

John’s content lay in the fact that it was he whom Biddy 
had chosen to occupy the seat, if not to perform the func¬ 
tions, of host, in preference to either of the other two men. 
It defined his position at once and gave him a comfortable 
sense of superiority over them. 

“What are we seeing tonight, Biddy?” enquired Mrs. 
Panter, helping herself to hors d’ceuvre from the selection 
which the footman handed to her. 

“ ‘ Loyalties,’ ” Biddy said, “ I hope none of you have 
seen it?” 

“ I have, but it doesn’t matter in the least,” observed 
Mrs. Panter. “ One only goes to the theatre to fill in the 
period of boredom between dinner and dancing.” 

“Art for art’s sake!” said Miss Bellamy from opposite. 
“ I understand now what a patron of the drama is.” 

“ What is it, then?” asked John. 

“ One who patronizes it, of course. I should have thought 



A CERTAIN MAN 


49 


you’d have appreciated that fact, Mr. Ffoulkes, considering 
that nine people out of every ten attend a church service 
in the same spirit.” 

“ No,” protested John quickly. 

“Perhaps not in your parts,” Miss Bellamy returned. 
“ I was thinking more of the fashionable West End church, 
where the congregation, when invited to ‘ kneel before the 
Lord its Maker ’ replies in deed, if not in words, 1 1 can’t. 
I should spoil my clothes.’ ” 

John shook his. head. 

“ It’s all rot to single any special class for condemnation,” 
he said. 

“ Then you really think a duke is as good as a dustman?” 
enquired Mr. Franklin condescendingly. 

“ I think that a duke is no better or no worse than a 
dustman in as far as they are both human beings,” John 
retorted. “ Believe me, if you will only take the trouble to 
dig a little way below the surface you’ll find very little 
difference. A duke is nothing but a veneered dustman. 
Do you suppose for a single instant that it is innate virtue 
which prevents the so-called upper classes from behaving 
in a precisely similar fashion to the lower? Of course it 
isn’t! Catch a duke and starve him for two or three days, 
then put him inside a baker’s shop with a tray of loaves 
and nobody to keep an eye on him, and see if he doesn’t 
nick one.” 

“ It sounds a good recipe. What a pity it’s not prac¬ 
ticable,” remarked Mr. Franklin tolerantly. 

“ And what a headline for the papers that cater for the 
masses,” put in his sister. “ ‘ Duke steals loaf.’ Why, it 
would sell like hot cakes!” 

“That’s exactly it!” exclaimed John eagerly. “It’s the 
thought of that headline which prevents many a man from 
doing wrong. People profess to sneer at Mrs. Grundy but 
she’s still a power in the land, thank goodness.” 

“ Mind you make a hearty meal, Charles, my lad,” Mr. 
Franklin exhorted his opposite neighbour. “ We’ve not got 



50 


A CERTAIN MAN 


a duke among us but we have got a bold bad Baronite, so 
we aren’t taking any risks.” 

Biddy smiled down the table at John. 

“Heavens, John!” she said. “What a sermon! And 
the text is?” 

“ I love Mrs. Grundy, her coat is so warm 

“ And if I don’t hurt her she’ll do me no harm,” 
mis-quoted Mrs. Panter in a sing-song voice, at which 
everyone laughed except John, who got rather red and 
said, “ Sorry, Biddy, I didn’t mean to preach.” 

He was furious with himself for not concealing his dis¬ 
comfiture better and for allowing Mrs. Panter to get under 
his guard. His antagonist, on the other hand, was so 
delighted at having pinked him that she forgot all her 
former rancour and became almost friendly. 

“ But I think it’s so delightful,” she said rallyingly. “ I 
shall certainly come and hear you in the pulpit one of these 
days. Where is the pulpit, by the way?” 

“ In the far East,” John told her, pulling himself together. 

“ How disappointing,” Mrs. Panter said. “ I’m afraid 
it’s a case of ‘ East is East ’ as somebody or other says. I 
forget who, for the minute.” 

“ Really, Carrie, your ignorance is colossal,” observed 
Sir Charles, in a high squeaky voice. “ Even I know which 
merchant delivered those goods.” 

Mrs. Panter surveyed him dispassionately. 

“ Quite likely, dear child. You’re last from school,” she 
remarked. “ All the same you seem to be ignorant of the 
excellent maxim which says something about children being 
seen but not heard.” 

“ I am. I wasn’t brought up on excellent maxims. Times 
change, you know,” Sir Charles answered back pertly. 

“You — you little viper!” ejaculated Mrs. Panter with 
vehemence. 

“ I deny it in toto,” piped Sir Charles shrilly. “ You 
never nourished me in your bosom.” 

“ How you wrangle, Charles,” Biddy said hurriedly. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


51 


“ Yes.” said Mrs. Pan ter. “ Mr. Ffoulkes will go back 
with the most dreadful opinion of us all. Fm sure they never 
talk in the terrible way you do at mothers 7 meetings and 
girls 7 dubs and places of that sort, do they, Mr. Ffoulkes?” 

u Never. Mrs. Pan ter , 77 John assured her gravely. “ A 
mothers* meeting is the very acme of respectability. You 
should just hear their ideas of life in the wild and woolly 
West, culled, for the most part, from the reports of divorce 
court proceedings. One lady of my acquaintance talks 
shudderingly of 4 wickedness in high places . 7 and my land¬ 
lady has a rooted conviction that I visit the purlieus of 
Grosvenor Square in a strictly missionary spirit. She always 
watches my departure with deep misgiving and welcomes 
me back with open arms, as one who has escaped from 
many and great dangers. 7 * 

“She's a far-seeing woman / 7 Miss Bellamy remarked 

dryly. 


“ We'll have coffee here, Bambv / 7 Biddy said, when the 
meal was finis hed and the dessert put on the table. 

tt Very good, Madame . 77 replied Bamby, placing a silver 
box full of cigarettes and small lighter at her elbow. 

** Help yourselves .' 7 Biddy said, taking a cigarette and 
pushing the box in Sir Charles 7 direction. 

“ Are they gaspers ?' 7 enquired that youth, peering into 
the box. 

** Don't pretend you were in the war. Charles / 7 observed 
Mrs. Panter disdainfully. “ IPs such bad form when 
everybody knows by merely looking at you that it 7 s out¬ 
side the bounds of possibility.” 

Sir Charles made an effort to get a firm grip of his incipi¬ 
ent moustache but slipped off it again. 

“ I don't know why you’re always chipping me about my 
age / 7 he said resentfully. 

" Did you say — age, my litde man ? 77 asked Mrs. Panter 
solicitously. 



52 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“ There you go again. I can’t help it if I wasn’t born 
in a vintage year. Cigarette?” 

“ Thanks. I prefer my own,” Mrs. Panter said, produc¬ 
ing a gold case from a bag. She extracted a cigarette there¬ 
from and lit it at the lighter which Sir Charles held for her. 

“ Do I shock you?” she enquired of Miss Bellamy a 
trifle maliciously. 

“ Not in the least,” was the calm rejoinder. “ I learned, 
during the war, to be shocked at nothing. I’m sorry if I 
disappoint you.” 

Mrs. Panter shrugged her shoulders. 

“ It really doesn’t matter to me one way or the other,” 
she said with studied insolence. 

“ I wish you were coming with us, John,” Biddy remarked 
in order to lead the conversation round to other topics. 
She was a little tired of this demon of bickering which 
seemed to have taken possession of her dear friend, Carrie 
Panter. 

“ Does Mr. Ffoulkes disapprove of theatres or does his 
landlady forbid them?” asked Reggie Franklin, with a 
supercilious glance at John’s clothes which was not lost upon 
the owner of them. 

“ My heart’s willing but my feet won’t let me,” John 
said, ignoring the other man’s remark and addressing him¬ 
self to Biddy. “ I’m painfully aware of their shortcomings. 
The look Mrs. Panter gave them before dinner was like a 
visit to a chiropodist. It cut me to the quick.” 

Mrs. Panter, mellowed by the good food and excellent 
wine which had been provided for her delectation, went to 
the length of tapping her late adversary smartly on the 
arm. 

“ You horrid man, raking up the past,” she said archly 
(at least John supposed it was intended for archness), 
then, catching sight of a grim smile of amusement on Miss 
Bellamy’s face, suddenly stiffened. Because she relaxed 
towards John, it didn’t follow that she did so to Miss 
Bellamy. The former, even though a parson, was a man, 



A CERTAIN MAN 


S3 


while the latter was just one of her own sex, and an unim¬ 
portant one at that. The former was kneadable, while to 
attempt to knead the latter would, in all probability, result 
in broken knuckles. Mrs. Panter never wasted her sweet¬ 
ness on the desert air. She found some difficulty in “ plac¬ 
ing ” John, of whose existence, until this evening, she had 
been unaware. If he were such an old friend of Biddy’s 
why had she never mentioned him and how did it come to 
pass that he was here without any warning, taking the head 
of the table and being treated as somebody of importance? 
Biddy had been speaking to her over the telephone at 
lunch time and had said no word about expecting him which 
she would have done if such had been the case. Mrs. 
Panter didn’t like mysterious people who turned up pro¬ 
miscuously like a cousin from the colonies in a play. She 
particularly disliked them when they were of the male 
persuasion, for you never knew where you were with them. 
There was always a danger that they might queer your 
pitch. 

It was because Mrs. Panter didn’t quite know where she 
was with John that she alternated between two extremes 
of conduct, unable to make up her mind which line to pur¬ 
sue. In the first shock of discovery she had adopted an 
attitude of lofty disdain which she was forced to acknowl¬ 
edge had not altogether met with success. It might be more 
worth her while to win him over to her side. This was the 
after-dinner frame of mind engendered, as aforesaid, by 
meat and drink of an agreeable nature and strengthened by 
every sip of the benedictine which Barnby had handed with 
the coffee. 

She was unaware, naturally, of the preprandial conversa¬ 
tion between the object of her meditations and Miss 
Bellamy concerning herself, else a different view of the 
situation might have presented itself to her. 

She trimmed her sails accordingly and, being a clever 
woman, started off by consolidating her position. Clergy¬ 
men, she understood, were keen on domesticity so she would 



54 


A CERTAIN MAN 


begin by clearing away any lurking suspicion on that score. 

“ I had a letter from Gavin this morning, Biddy,” she said 
down the table. “ Poor darling! He finds the climate 
dreadfully trying.” 

Having thus paved the way she turned to John. 

“ That’s my husband,” she informed him, with a little 
sigh which was intended to convey resignation to the 
inscrutable decrees of Providence. “ He’s out in Tanganyika 
Territory managing a rubber plantation. The climate’s 
too awful. He won’t hear of my joining him, so he’s there 
and I’m here, thousands of miles apart from one another. 
But what can one do? One must live, and one just took 
anything that came along after one was demobilized. We 
did discuss my going out but he absolutely refused to allow 
me.” 

She didn’t think it necessary to render a verbatim report 
of the discussion in question, which was just as well for it 
was short and to the point and lacked that poignancy at 
which she hinted, consisting as it did of two sentences and 
two only. Mrs. Panter’s contribution to it had been, “ Well, 
if you think I’m going to leave London and all my friends 
and bury myself in a savage country, I’m not, so there!” 
to which her husband had replied “ Good God, / don’t want 
you to,” and it had been left at that. If Mr. Panter had no 
illusions about his wife he had, at any rate, absolute trust 
in her. He would as soon have mistrusted a goldfish swim¬ 
ming in a glass bowl as his spouse, not so much because he 
had an unduly high opinion of the morals of a goldfish as 
because he realised the limitations which a glass bowl 
imposes. Society was Mrs. Panter’s glass bowl in which 
she swam lazily round and round and, unlike her prototype, 
she had the sense to appreciate the fact that if the bowl 
was upset she would find herself lying, gasping for breath, 
on the bare boards with every prospect of a messy end. 

John, to tell the truth, was somewhat taken aback by this 
sudden exhibition of wifely devotion which, in fact, was so 
sudden that it rather lacked the artistic touch. It was like 



A CERTAIN MAN 


55 


a revoke at bridge, when a player puts down a card of the 
suit he has already passed and tries to gather up the trick 
with one and the same movement, to hide the mistake from 
his opponents. 

It was only because Mrs. Panter felt that time was getting 
short for the exploitation of conjugality that she rushed in 
where an angel would not have taken the trouble to tread. 

Even Biddy, least suspicious of mortals, wondered why 
the absent Mr. Panter was dragged in by the hair of his 
head, so to speak. He was not usually a topic of conversa¬ 
tion with his wife and, on the rare occasions when she did 
happen to allude to him it was not, as a rule, as a “ poor 
darling.” It was perplexing, too, to learn that it was stress 
of circumstances of a pecuniary nature which had compelled 
this banishment to distant lands. Biddy had certainly 
understood from Mrs. Panter that it had something to do 
with a “ concession,” whatever that might be, and that the 
post of manager to the rubber plantation was a secondary 
consideration intended as a blind, to prevent any other 
unauthorised person getting wind of the transaction. 

However, as she could not very well pick holes in the 
accuracy of a statement made by one of her guests, Biddy 
contented herself by murmuring some remark of a non- 
commital kind which was a quite unnecessary waste of 
breath, for Mrs. Panter was so busily engaged in submit¬ 
ting to the will of heaven for John’s benefit that it was lost 
upon her. It was so unlike Carrie to submit to the will of 
heaven or indeed any other will than her own that it caused 
quite a mild sensation round the table and John realised with 
some embarrassment that the four who were not the actual 
recipients of Mrs. Panter’s confidences were listening to 
them with varying degrees of amusement, discreetly blended 
with incredulity, depicted on their faces. 

Miss Bellamy fixed a pair of pince-nez firmly on the 
bridge of her nose and surveyed Mrs. Panter with that air 
of detached interest which a maiden aunt assumes who has 
taken her nephews and nieces to the local pantomime and 



56 


A CERTAIN MAN 


doesn’t want to damp their spirits by showing how bored 
she is with the whole proceedings. Mr. Franklin cracked 
nuts explosively and smiled at them while he did so as 
though they shared a joke in common. Biddy leaned for¬ 
ward with one elbow on the table, her chin supported on 
the back of her hand, a dimple denting her cheek and 
betraying her. 

Sir Charles was the only one who made any comment. 

“ Gosh, Carrie,” he said, “ you’re a blooming marvel. 
How do you do it?” 

Perhaps it was as well that the entrance of Barnby to say 
the car was at the door coincided with this remark for, to 
judge by the expression on Mrs. Panter’s face at this rude 
interruption to her flow of eloquence, Sir Charles would 
have received short shrift from her. 

As it was the announcement caused a general uprising 
from the table and an exodus into the hall where coats 
and wraps were donned by the theatre-going party while 
Miss Bellamy and John stood by watching the preparations 
for departure. 

“ I shan’t be back till goodness knows what time,” Biddy 
informed Miss Bellamy. “ I’m dancing at the Eccles’ and I 
may possibly look in at the Hurd’s as well. I wish you 
were coming with us, John. Don’t go. Stop and keep 
Belle company for a bit. And leave your address. Per¬ 
haps one of these days I’ll come and have tea with you if 
you’ll have me and it won’t be too much of a shock to Mrs. 
Grundy. Anyhow you’ll come and see me again, won’t 
you? We mustn’t let another twelve years elapse! If we 
do you may find me with a chestnut wig and then you 
would certainly refuse to recognise me. Good-bye, John. 
Good-night, Belle, my own. Is it ‘ my own ’ or Mahone? 
I had a nurse who used to sing me to sleep with that song, 
but as she was a little rocky over her aitches I never dis¬ 
covered whether the suffix to Belle was an endearment or 
merely a surname. Not that it really matters, does it?” 

“ Good-night, Mr. Ffoulkes, and I’m sorry your pulpit is 



A CERTAIN MAN 


57 


situated at such a distance. I’d love to hear another dis¬ 
course from you, but it will have to wait till you get a living 
somewhere nearer, say Yorkshire or the Cornish Riviera,” 
Mrs. Panter said, giving John a little nod. She didn’t offer 
to shake hands, feeling that to do so would be to cut off her 
line of retreat, a position in which no strategist ever allows 
himself to be placed. 

The two men contented themselves by saying “ Good¬ 
night,” the younger with a certain degree of friendliness, 
the elder with a hint of patronage in his manner which left 
John quite unimpressed with his own obvious inferiority to 
this star dazzling in the social firmament. 

“ Well, that’s that,” remarked Miss Bellamy thankfully, 
when she and John found themselves alone. “ Let’s go 
upstairs to the drawing room and indulge ourselves in an 
orgy of pharisaicalism or whatever the word is which you 
employ when you’re sorry for all the poor people who aren’t 
as nice as you are yourself.” 

She led the way to the stairs as she spoke and John fol¬ 
lowed. 

“ I used sometimes to visit the wounded Tommies in the 
hospital,” she said on the way up. “ There was one man, 
I remember, who was in the habit of describing anything 
which did not meet with his approval as ‘ the ruddy limit.’ 
I think it must have been a tempering of the wind to the 
shorn lamb, for the sister in charge of the ward used to 
allude to it as ‘ Corporal Mackenzie’s poetical licence,’ from 
which I gathered that he was rather more discursive when I 
was not present. Be that as it may, it appealed to me as an 
expression which a perfect lady might adopt for her own 
use in moments of stress without forfeiting her title as such, 
so please don’t look on me as an abandoned female if I 
employ the term in reference to a certain person who shall 
be nameless.” 

They had reached the drawing room by this time and 
Miss Bellamy resumed the seat she had occupied before 
dinner and took up her knitting from the table. 



58 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“ Sit down,” she said to John, “ and light your pipe, if 
you’ve got one. I like to see a man smoking. It gives me 
the same comfortable feeling that I have when I watch a 
baby sucking its bottle. It insures a period of quiescence 
without any undue effort on one’s own part.” 

“ That sounds as if you expected to find the burden of 
entertaining me an onerous one without artificial aids,” John 
observed. 

“ I’m just running no risks, that’s all,” said Miss Bellamy. 
“ After all, we’ve known one another about a couple of 
hours so we’ve no mutual reminiscences to fall back upon. 
You don’t know any of my interests and I don’t know any 
of yours — except Biddy.” 

John would have liked to ask on what grounds Miss 
Bellamy based her supposition that Biddy was included in 
his interests. It was a word which might mean much or 
little according to circumstances and he wondered if by 
any chance she was aware of that incident which had 
occurred in the cavern in the dim distant past. It was the 
thought of this which kept back the words hovering on the 
tip of his tongue. 

“ Biddy and I were rather — pals, in the old days,” he 
said instead. 

If he hoped to draw Miss Bellamy by this remark it 
signally failed in its purpose. 

“ Were you?” was her sole comment uttered in a disinter¬ 
ested tone. 

“ What I can’t understand is how she and Mrs. Panter 
come to be friends. I shouldn’t have thought they’d any¬ 
thing in common,” he said. 

“ They haven’t — yet,” Miss Bellamy replied. 

“ How do you mean ‘ yet’,” enquired John. 

Miss Bellamy lowered her work and looked across at him. 

“ Mr. Ffoulkes,” she said deliberately, “ Biddy is nearly 
thirty but she knows a good deal less about the world than 
many a girl half her age. She married, as you have been 
told, when she was barely nineteen and spent the next six 



A CERTAIN MAN 


59 


years of her life ministering to the wants of a selfish old 
man who tied her to his side and considered she had ful¬ 
filled her destiny when she became his wife. It never 
occurred to him that she might miss the companionship of 
those of her own generation or that her youth and spirits re¬ 
quired an outlet. He was one of those short-sighted people 
who quote glibly 1 As a husband is the wife is/ and leave it 
at that. He squandered his own birthright and when he was 
bankrupt of health and strength demanded of Biddy that 
she should pay a share of the price. Is it any wonder she 
felt defrauded? Are you surprised that, when she found 
herself free at last and realised that she had been cheated 
of six of the best years of her life, years during which she 
could have been developing and learning the value of life 
instead of being shut away in a dark cellar into which no 
ray of light ever penetrated, she threw herself into the 
stream and let it carry her along? She’d never had an 
opportunity of even paddling on the edge of it so what could 
she know of its currents? My poor little Biddy!” 

11 But she’s quite different to Mrs. Panter,” John pro¬ 
tested vigorously. 

“ At present she is,” said Miss Bellamy gravely. “ At 
present the current isn’t strong. She could swim out of it 
quite easily now. That’s where the danger lies.” 

“T don’t think I understand,” John said, puzzled. 

“ She doesn’t realise the danger ahead,” explained Miss 
Bellamy. “ It’s so easy and pleasant to float down the 
stream with one’s eyes shut, but if one does that one does 
not see that the stream is widening and the banks receding 
on either hand, or notice that the current is sweeping one 
rapidly along where before one only gently glided. And 
when one does wake up to the fact it is too late. The stream 
has one for keeps.” 

“ But — but Mrs. Panter is — isn’t — ” John stam¬ 
mered. He suddenly felt frightened for Biddy though for 
what reason he didn’t quite know, only Miss Bellamy looked 
so serious and spoke so enigmatically that his mind leapt 



60 


A CERTAIN MAN 


to all kinds of imaginings. He appeared so alarmed that 
Miss Bellamy hastened to reassure him. 

“ Mrs. Panter’s nothing but a clever silly woman, if there 
can be such a flat contradiction of epithets. I’m not hint¬ 
ing that she’s trying to undermine Biddy’s morals. If I 
really thought such a thing as that, do you suppose for a 
single moment that I should be even moderately polite to 
the creature? All I’m trying to imply is that she belongs 
to a set that lives for the present and what the present has 
to offer in the way of excitement, with whom the past is 
past because it never had any roots and is withered away, 
and who only plan for the future in so far as it affects their 
own well-being. If there isn’t any actual positive harm in 
them there’s plenty of negative. Their sins, if that isn’t 
too descriptive a word for them, are almost exclusively 
sins of omission, but I’m not at all sure I wouldn’t rather 
have the other kind. At any rate there’s more virility about 
a sin of commission. Biddy doesn’t really care about them, 
but they exist for excitement and excitement is a form of 
anodyne. It’s like drugs or drink. You go on and on 
increasing the dose until you can’t live without it. It’s 
what we’ve got to save Biddy from. Somehow or other 
we’ve got to get her out of the current before it overpowers 
her. We’ve got to throw her a rope and pull for all we’re 
worth. I’m not strong enough to do it alone. You must 
help me. Will you?” 

“ Why, of course, you know I will,” John said. “ Thank 
you for asking me.” 

“ The question is, where are we to get a rope?” said Miss 
Bellamy. 

John pondered. 

“ There’s a house to let for August and September at 
Porth Ros. The people who had taken it can’t come and 
they’re trying to sublet. It’s the very same house Mrs. 
Mercer took twelve years ago. Mightn’t it be worth while 
to persuade her to take it? It might prove an even more 



A CERTAIN MAN 


61 


efficient landmark than I should. Anyhow it would be 
going back to the starting point.” 

Miss Bellamy nodded. 

“ An excellent suggestion,” she remarked. 

She cogitated for a few moments, then added: 

“ I’ll go and see Dr. Neame tomorrow.” 

“ To get him to order Biddy there?” 

Miss Bellamy shook her head. 

“ That would be too crude altogether,” she said. “ No. 
To get him to order me there.” 

“ But what’s the good of that if you can’t have the house 
till August or anyhow the end of July?” objected John. 

“ I’m very much afraid the long railway would be too 
much for me at present. A couple of months’ complete 
rest and wind up the cure with another two months on the 
North coast of Cornwall will be what he will say, I feel 
almost certain. Porth Ros is the North coast, isn’t it? We 
mustn’t make a mistake.” 

“ Yes. It’s the North coast,” John told her. 

“ Well, don’t forget to leave your address — for Biddy,” 
said the astute lady, and this time there was no doubt about 
the wink that accompanied her words. 



CHAPTER V 


It was getting on for four o’clock before Biddy reached 
home. She had “ looked in ” at the Hurd’s as she had told 
Miss Bellamy she might and had found such a pleasant 
dance in full swing that she had stopped an hour instead of 
the ten minutes she had intended. 

She never allowed either Barnby or the footman to sit 
up for her and when the car drew up at her door she 
jumped out of it before Rands had time to leave his seat 
and had the key in the latch without giving him a chance 
of assisting her in any way. 

“ Good-night, Rands,” she called out, as she let herself 
in. 

“ Good-night, Ma’am,” returned the man, and the car 
drove off directly she was safely inside with the door shut. 
He didn’t want to waste any unnecessary time in getting to 
bed once his mistress was securely housed. 

Biddy switched on the lights and, with a little yawn and 
a weary stretch of the arms, dropped her cloak off her 
shoulders on to the floor, where it lay in an untidy heap. 

On the table in the middle of the square hall lay a few 
letters which had come by the evening post and beside 
them a small oblong of pasteboard. There was also a tray 
with a plate of sandwiches, a glass jug containing hock-cop, 
and a tumbler upon it. 

Biddy advanced to the table idly wondering who could 
have called and left his card since she had gone out. After 
dinner was hardly an orthodox hour for paying visits, she 
reflected. 

She gave vent to a little laugh of amusement when she 
picked up the card and read the name inscribed thereon, 
for it was John’s and above it was written in pencil, “ Mrs. 
Grundy at home.” 


62 


A CERTAIN MAN 


63 


Helping herself to a sandwich from the plate and crossing 
to the fireplace Biddy propped the card against a vase at 
one end of the mantel-piece and stood there with an elbow 
resting on the shelf while she nibbled at her modest repast, 
her thoughts going back over the events of the previous 
afternoon from the time when she had come into Mrs. 
Chaworth’s drawing room and found John in possession of 
it. It had been good to see him again. It had been like 
opening an old disused cabinet and finding at the back of 
a drawer a packet of ancient letters faintly perfumed with 
the scent of sandalwood — old letters which had been put 
away there years ago and forgotten. They brought back to 
the memory so many incidents unremembered till then, but 
they brought, too, many regrets. They touched chords 
which had not vibrated for so long that they sounded 
cracked and quavering instead of rich and full. 

Well! Brooding over the past did no good. Twelve 
years had rolled over the sands of time since she and John 
had laughed away those summer days at Porth Ros. The 
castles built in those sands had long ago been knocked down 
by the waves and nothing of them remained. 

She gave a little shake of her shoulders as though she were 
ridding herself of some incubus and turning went over to 
where she had dropped her cloak and picked it up off the 
floor then, with it over her arm, walked slowly towards the 
stairs. 

She switched off the lights when she reached the archway 
leaving the hall in darkness save for a beam from a street 
lamp which pierced the fan-light above the front door, 
making a yellow splodge on the wall. The stairs led up into 
soft blackness, a region of mystery and enchantment where 
all sorts of unseen things might lurk. There was something 
rather thrilling in venturing into it, feeling one’s way 
cautiously along with one hand on the banister and with the 
other cutting strokes in the pitch darkness ahead, added 
to which was the excitement, pleasurable because of its 
improbability, of suddenly coming in contact with a yielding 


64 


A CERTAIN MAN 


body which could only be there at that hour of the night 
for some nefarious purpose. It was easy enough to dispel 
the darkness with a single pressure of the finger but Biddy 
childishly enjoyed stealing up without putting the lights 
on. More people than is popularly supposed, who have 
arrived at so-called years of discretion, cherish some infan¬ 
tile game of their own which they play when they are by 
themselves with no one to scoff at them for doing so. It is a 
magic carpet which bears them back in a moment of time 
to the luscious country where ogres and giants and bogies 
of all kinds lurk in the shadows and where princes in shining 
armour spend hectic lives rescuing distressed damsels. 
Biddy had cautiously negotiated the three bottom stairs 
when she suddenly stopped dead and caught her breath, for 
a low hesitating knock sounded on the front door. It was so 
uncertain and gentle that, for a second, she thought her 
ears had deceived her and that what she had heard had 
been one of those unaccountable nocturnal noises of which 
the night is so full. She had just made up her mind that 
she had been mistaken when once more she heard it again. 
This time there was no doubt about it. Tap — tap — tap. 
The sound of knuckles on wood and obviously from the 
other side of the front door. 

Her first impulse was to bolt upstairs and, from the fast¬ 
ness of her bedroom, ring for somebody to come to the 
rescue. Pride, however, came to her aid. It was too ridicu¬ 
lous to be frightened of somebody on the wrong side of a 
locked and bolted door. It might only be Rands returning 
with something of hers which he had found in the car. So 
she tried to argue with herself but she knew perfectly well 
it wasn’t Rands. Nevertheless, she retraced her steps to 
the door, turning on every available light en route. The 
darkness had all of a sudden lost its softness and become 
menacing and terrifying. 

“Is that you, Rands?” she called out sharply because, 
in spite of her assurance that there was absolutely nothing 
to be frightened of, she was frightened. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


65 


A voice outside, a man’s voice, made some reply, unin¬ 
telligible through the thickness of the wood, and after a 
momentary hesitation she unbolted and unlocked the door, 
then opened it as far as the chain would allow. 

“ Is that you, Rands?” she demanded once again, picking 
up her skirts ready to make a dash for safety if the 
untimely visitor proved to be an armed burglar. She did 
not stop to reason that armed burglars do not, as a general 
rule, knock at the front door and claim admittance 
through it. 

“ I beg your pardon but you dropped this,” the voice 
said, and she noticed even in the midst of her agitation that 
it was an educated one and unmistakably that of a gentle¬ 
man. 

At the same time a hand appeared through the slit hold¬ 
ing something. She could not distinguish what it was for 
the fingers threw a shadow upon it and she made no attempt 
to take it. 

“ What is it?” she asked suspiciously. 

“It’s a sort of pendant thing, I think,” the owner of the 
voice said. 

Biddy’s hand went up to her throat instinctively. Yes! 
It was quite true. The diamond pendant she had been 
wearing on a chain round her neck was missing. 

“ You dropped it as you got out of your car,” the voice 
continued. “ Please take it quickly or I’ll get into trouble 
if a bobby hoves in sight.” 

Biddy considered. What if the hand grasped her by the 
wrist as she took the pendant? She wasn’t going to run 
any unnecessary risks! She opened her lips to tell the 
stranger to drop the thing on the floor so that she might 
shut the door and pick it up afterwards, but once more 
pride prevented her. She wasn’t going to give it away that 
she was frightened. 

A sudden inspiration took her. 

Beside the door stood one of those rather antiquated 
chairs which, with some slight manipulation, are convertible 



66 


A CERTAIN MAN 


into step-ladders. She pulled it out from the wall and, 
after some fumbling, discovered how the mechanism worked, 
then, dragging it near the door, mounted it and found she 
was just able, by standing on tip-toe, to see through the 
fan-light the stranger who stood patiently on the step out¬ 
side, his hand still plunged through the slit in the door. 

The light from the street lamp fell on him so that Biddy, 
though he was standing so close to the door that nothing of 
him was visible below the shoulders, could see his face 
distinctly. 

He was tall and clean shaven with sharp-cut features and 
his chin had a cleft which softened the firm set of it, 
though it did not altogether eliminate its doggdd obstinacy. 
He was leaning against the pillar which flanked the doorway 
with head thrown back and eyes closed (which was lucky 
for Biddy as otherwise he could not have failed to see her) 
and with a look of such utter weariness that she had to 
stifle the ejaculation of pity which rose to her lips at the 
sight of him. His mouth was curved in a smile which held 
more of contemptuous bitterness than amusement and his 
cheeks were drawn and pinched so that the line of his jaw 
stood out hard and square and ugly as if it were a band of 
iron framing the rest of his face. But with all his hard¬ 
ness there was no hint of viciousness or even cruelty about 
him. It was not natural to him but stamped there by 
privation, and Biddy’s fears vanished instantly at the sight. 
She clambered down from her post of observation hurriedly. 

“ Wait a minute. I’ll open the door,” she called out, 
fumbling at the chain. 

“ I’m afraid you’ll have to move your hand,” she said 
after a minute. “I can’t get the chain off unless I shut the 
door.” 

“ Please don’t be long,” he said anxiously. “ If a police¬ 
man happens to come along I shall get into trouble.” 

Biddy waited only till the hand was withdrawn, then 
closed the door, undid the chain, and opened it again. 

“ I’m awfully sorry if I frightened you,” the stranger 



A CERTAIN MAN 


67 


said, when at last he and Biddy stood face to face. “I — 
I ought to have called out when I saw the thing drop.” 

He held it out to her as he spoke and Biddy took it from 
him. 

“ Why didn’t you?” she asked. Now that he had put the 
idea into her mind it certainly did seem odd that he should 
have waited until the car had driven off, and indeed for 
some considerable time after she was safely indoors, before 
making any effort to restore her property. For an instant 
her doubts revived. What if it was a plot? Perhaps he had 
accomplices near at hand ready to rush the house at a given 
signal and overpower her before she was able to shriek for 
help. She looked searchingly at her mysterious visitor, with 
curiosity not unmixed with apprehension. 

“Why didn’t you call out?” she repeated. 

The light from the hall poured out upon him and by it 
she could see his pallid cheeks flush and notice the muscles 
of his throat working as though he were swallowing down 
some emotion, but still he made no reply and a third time 
she put the question. 

This time he answered but in tones so low that she had 
to bend forward to catch the words. 

“ I- I saw the diamonds sparkling and-- I’m 

hungry.” 

He finished the sentence with a rush, almost as though it 
were forced out of him against his will and turned away 
his head but not before Biddy had caught a glimpse of the 
expression in his eyes. It was like that of some animal 
trapped in a snare, worn out with futile struggling to free 
itself and waiting terror-stricken for it knows not what. 

“ Oh!” There was a world of pity in the cry which that 
look of hopelessness wrung from Biddy, but to ears unat¬ 
tuned to pity it held only loathing and contempt. 

He faced her once more and set his jaw stubbornly. 

“ You don’t understand. How should you?” he said bit¬ 
terly, with a quick, contemptuous glance at her which took 
in with one sweep her smart frock of some rose-coloured 





68 


A CERTAIN MAN 


material, the silk stockings to match, the brocaded shoes, 
the jewels gleaming in her hair and on her fingers. 

“ Hunger and want and cold and misery! What are they 
to you but names? You, who have everything you desire 
— more than you desire — whose soul is clogged with luxury 
and ease. What should you know of those who walk the 
streets in rags, without one single person in the whole wide 
world to care whether they live or die? Do you ever re¬ 
member, when you sit down to your own over-laden table, 
that there are poor wretches who, if they hadn’t forgotten 
how to give thanks, would say their grace for a crust picked 
out of a gutter?” 

He stopped, exhausted by his own vehemence. 

“ But — you’re a gentleman, aren’t you?” 

The question was forced out of Biddy’s lips against her 
will and before she realised what the words implied. 

He laughed bitterly. 

“ Thank you for reminding me. I beg your pardon,” he 
said. “ I’m afraid I forgot it for the moment. Gentleman! 
I suppose I was once. I almost wish to God I hadn’t been. 
It has its drawbacks! The instincts survive. But for that 
you wouldn’t have seen your pendant again and I’d at least 
have lived like a gentleman for a month or two even if I’d 
forfeited the right to the title. Listen!” 

A heavy footfall sounded along the street, coming nearer 
and nearer. 

“ That’s the copper,” he said quickly. “They’re inquisi¬ 
tive brutes. He’ll want to know what I am doing on your 
doorstep at this hour of the morning. You’d better shut 
yourself in, else he’ll wonder what you’ve got to do with 
it and that wouldn’t be very pleasant for you. Good-bye.” 

He turned to go, but she laid a detaining hand on his 
arm. 

“ Please go in,” he said, “ and switch off the lights.” 

“ But you?” she asked. 

He shrugged his shoulders. 

“ Loitering with intent to commit a felony or any other 



A CERTAIN MAX 


69 


cock an d boll story his lawfulness chooses to concoct for the 
benen: of the magistrate. Once you’re under you’re jolly 
well kept thee. Not that it really matters. My self- 
reject went with my clothes." 

The footsteps sounded very near now. Something must 
be done. Before he could realise her intentions. Biddy had 
seized him by the arm. pulled him bodily into the house, 
shut and locked the door behind them both. 

“By Jove! That’s what one might describe as a boh 
from the blue.” he exclaimed, forgetting- in the excit ement 
of the moment, the strange position in which he was placed. 

- Stand over there.” Biddy ordered him, pointing to the 
comer at the angle between the fireplace and the left-hand 
window. 

“ What are you going to do?” he asked, as he obeyed. 

“ Hell have seen the light across the road. He may in¬ 
vestigate. if we don’t anticipate his curiosity.’* Biddy said. 

She wait to the window on the further side of the 
trait door and very deliberately drew apart the curtains 
which hung across it. pulled up the blind and. picking up 
the letters which lay on the table, stood reading than cm a 
spot where anybody passing along the pavement could not 
fait to see her plainly. 

The steps outside drew level with the window, paused for 
the fraction of a second, during which the constable was 
evidently taking stock of the room and its only visible 
occupant, then passed on and gradually died away in the 

distance. 

Biddy pulled down the blind again and drew the curtains 
before turning to her companion. 

Now that she ctmid see him properly she found him to be 
a good deal younger than he had looked when he was stand¬ 
ing on the doorstep. She judged him to be about twenty- 
sx or even l ess His hair, which hitherto had been hidden 
bv a cap. was a dark brown and rippled back from his 
forehead in little waves. He was dressed in a blue serge 
suit which had obviously seen better days, and one of his 







70 


A CERTAIN MAN 


boots had a split in its side showing the sock through. 
Round his neck he wore a muffler of rather hard looking 
cloth, which did duty for a collar. The cuffs of his shirt 
were frayed at the edges and round the bottoms of the 
trousers, where they were turned up over the boots, ran a 
thin, patchy line of caked mud. Like their wearer, the 
garments gave an impression of having come down in the 
world, for they were well cut and, in spite of their ragged¬ 
ness and neglect, bore the unmistakable stamp of having 
been built by a good tailor. 

Biddy threw a quick glance at the plate of sandwiches 
which lay on the table. It was poor fare for a man who 
had just acknowledged he was hungry, but she didn’t know 
how to get him anything more substantial without causing 
him embarrassment. Anyhow it was better than nothing. 
She poured out a glass of the hock-cup and was conscious, 
as she did so, of a sudden stiffening on the part of her 
strange guest, as if he were compelling himself to master 
some almost irresistible impulse, and she guessed that his 
attention had, for the first time, been drawn to the fact 
that there was food and drink within reach, and that he was 
nerving himself to act as though he were unaware of it. 

“ Have a sandwich?” she asked, in tones which she care¬ 
fully tried to make matter of fact, as though it were the 
customary thing to offer refreshments to seedy young men 
who knocked upon your front door at unseemly hours of 
the night. 

She held out the plate of sandwiches as she spoke, smiling 
at him in friendly fashion, but he made no movement to 
come forward and help himself. 

“ I mustn’t stop,” he said, and turned his head away 
so as not to see the sight of food. 

“ Please,” she said, “ I’ll keep you company.” 

She carried the plate and tumbler of hock-cup to a low 
table which stood opposite the fireplace between two arm¬ 
chairs. 

“ Come and sit down and tell me all about it,” she said. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


71 


Slowly, reluctantly, almost as if he were impelled by some 
will stronger than his own, the man came towards her and 
sat down in the chair she indicated. 

He made no attempt to help himself from the plate that 
stood at his elbow but, instead, sat there with his hands 
clasped between his knees and his head bent, and Biddy, 
with sudden horror, realised that he was crying, not noisily 
or uncontrollably, but silently and without making any 
sound; indeed, it was only by the heaving of his shoulders 
and seeing the tears splashing unheeded on to his clenched 
hands that she was aware of it. It was as though the sym¬ 
pathy in her voice had broken down some invisible barrier 
which had dammed his emotions and that the pent-up feel¬ 
ings of months had poured through the outlet, and over¬ 
whelmed him. 

Biddy leaned across and laid her hand gently on his arm. 

“ You poor boy!” she said, the maternal in her rising to 
the surface at the sight of his utter abandonment. 

With a supreme effort he managed to regain his self- 
control, though he still sat with bowed head, not looking 
at her, only now, she noticed, he unlaced his fingers and 
began fidgetting with them, locking and unlocking them, 
pulling, twisting, torturing them, with quick incessant 
movements which never stopped for a single instant. 

“I’m frightfully sorry,” he said at last, shamefacedly. 
“ That’s a poor way of showing thanks for your kindness.” 

“ Tell me,” she insisted, touched by the very weakness for 
which he asked pardon. 

“ Is there any use?” He put the question wearily. 
“ I’m only a passerby. Presently the darkness will swallow 
me up and, even if you remember and throw me a back¬ 
ward glance, you won’t see me.” 

“ Why not? The day is breaking.” She got up and, 
going to the window, once more pulled the curtains apart 
and drew the blind up. Outside, the darkness had given 
way to the faint gray of early dawn, through which the 
houses on the further side of the street loomed dimly. 



72 


A CERTAIN MAN 


Biddy threw up the window and, as she did so, the 
cheeping of the newly-awakened sparrows fell upon their 
ears. 

“ Look — and listen,” she said. 

“ I’ve had my day such as it was,” her guest replied 
shortly. 

She turned and bent towards him a swift glance. 

“ Aren’t we a little apt to think day is done because the 
sun goes behind the clouds for a while?” 

Even as she said the words it suddenly struck her that she 
was trying to inculcate in him a lesson which she had not 
yet learned herself, and with this thought came a fellow 
feeling for this sport of Fate, and a strange sense of 
comradeship. 

She came back slowly into the room and resumed her 
seat on the other side of the little table. 

“ Eat something to please me if not yourself,” she begged 
him, and this time he did not resist. 

She watched him as he ate. It was obvious that he was 
ravenous but he forced himself to eat slowly as if the food 
in itself was of no moment. It comforted him and helped 
him to recover the self-respect, which he foolishly and quite 
erroneously felt that he had forfeited by his breakdown just 
now, by trying to imagine that he was an ordinary guest 
being entertained under ordinary circumstances. More¬ 
over, if he had eaten according to his inclinations he would 
have shocked and alarmed his hostess, who could not be 
expected to know what the pangs of real gnawing hunger 
were. 

Biddy took a sandwich herself. She did not want it, 
but she thought it would make the occasion less marked if 
she shared his meal. They formed a curious contrast, the 
woman in her dainty rose-coloured evening dress, the man 
in his shabby worn suit, but she was too interested to take 
any heed of the awkwardness of the situation or to reflect 
that it was hardly customary to sit eating sandwiches and 
drinking hock-cup at half-past four in the morning with 


A CERTAIN MAN 


73 


an entirely strange young man possessing no credentials 
and with every facility given him for hitting his solitary 
companion over the head and relieving her of her valuables. 

Not that Biddy would have been the least uneasy even 
if this last contingency had crossed her mind. The sight 
of his tears had destroyed any lingering doubt which might 
have been lurking in her brain as to his trustworthiness. 
No one with criminal intent could have pumped up those 
drops which she had seen splashing down on to his hands. 
They were genuine enough. The most finished actor could 
not have counterfeited them. 

It was the man who first realised the enormity of the 
whole proceeding. Till now he had been too overwrought 
to think coherently. He sprang up from his seat with an 
exclamation of dismay when he did so. 

“ I say!” he said, in tones of horror. “ I oughtn’t to be 
here.” 

“ Why not?” enquired Biddy calmly. 

“ Well, look — look at the hour and — look at me.” He 
stuttered with a sudden horrified consciousness of his tat¬ 
terdemalion appearance. What would anybody think or 
say if they discovered her hobnobbing with a man who, on 
the face of it, was nothing more or less than a tramp? And 
at half-past four in the morning, too! 

With this thought came a reminder of all the other occu¬ 
pants of the house whom, up till then, he had forgotten. At 
any moment one of the sleeping people upstairs might 
awaken and, hearing the sound of voices, come down to 
investigate. Who they were or of what they might consist 
he was not in a position to be able to say, but at any rate 
there must be servants, if nobody else, in a house of this 
size and importance. 

The bare idea of such a thing happening brought out 
little beads of perspiration on his forehead. 

Biddy eyed him in some surprise, not altogether un¬ 
mixed with amusement. That her course of action in bring¬ 
ing an unknown person of the male persuasion into the 



74 


A CERTAIN MAN 


house at such an hour might, if made public, occasion re¬ 
mark did not trouble her in the least and that he should 
be the one to have qualms on the subject struck her as so 
highly humourous that she felt strongly inclined to laugh. 

“Why! I do believe you’re shocked,” she exclaimed 
banteringly, but there was no answering smile on his face. 
Instead, he looked preternaturally grave and solemn. 

“ You see,” he said, with a ring of hurt pride in his 
voice, “ I may be a scarecrow now but I did once live in a 
world where it was regarded as the accepted thing to — to 
take care of one’s women. I suppose my susceptibilities 
have got blunted for I seem to have forgotten. I must 
apologise.” 

“ So hide-bound convention didn’t expire when war 
broke out,” Biddy said, with a certain show of impatience, 
but if she hoped to inveigle him into a discussion she sig¬ 
nally failed in her purpose for he only observed, “ I’ll be 
getting along now,” and turned as if to go. 

He had nearly reached the door before she realised his 
intention, but when she did she got up quickly from her 
chair and wheeled round facing in his direction. 

“ But you haven’t told me,” she said. 

He paused uncertainly. The temptation to remain was 
strong. He was loath to go away, to leave behind him the 
amenities to which he had been for so long a stranger and 
go out again into the world which held no place for him, 
the world which could do very well without him and which 
he could do very well without. For an all too brief spell he 
had tasted once more the ordinary comforts which mean so 
little to those accustomed to them, so much to those who 
have been deprived of them. To rest his aching limbs in a 
softly-padded easy-chair, to eat food daintily served, to talk 
to one of his own class as an equal, to feast his eyes on that 
rosy vision (Aurora goddess of Dawn, he mentally desig¬ 
nated her) with the cloud of dark hair like a nimbus about 
her head, to lave his parched soul in the tender pity which 
overflowed from her! Once outside, with the door bolted 



A CERTAIN MAN 


75 


and barred behind him , all these things, at present actu¬ 
alities, would become mere memories and, precious as they 
might be, they would only serve to deepen the surrounding 
gloom. Small wonder was it that he hesitated to take the 
plunge and relegate them to the limbo of the past. 

Biddy noticed his irresolution and took advantage of it to 
press her point. 

“ Come and sit down again,” she begged. “ You can’t 
go now without telling me. Don’t you think you — owe it 
to me?” 

Half unwillingly, half gladly he succumbed at last to the 
temptation, knowing full well that he ought to go, yet 
yielding to the opportunity given him of prolonging this 
glimpse of paradise so unexpectedly vouchsafed. 

“ Would it really interest you to hear?” he asked, coming 
slowly back to his seat. 

“ Yes, it really would,” Biddy replied. “ Draw the cur¬ 
tains before you sit down.” 

He obeyed with a little grim smile. In spite of her gibes 
at “ hidebound convention ” his benefactress evidently did 
not intend to risk being seen talking to him by any chance 
passerby, unlikely as such a contingency was at that hour. 
All the same, if her inconsistency diverted him, the precau¬ 
tionary measure was a relief. His conscience was pricking 
him for his weakness in giving way and not refusing to spin 
out this interview and he was terribly frightened of placing 
her in a false position. 

“Now,” she said when he had once more resumed his 

seat. 

She noticed again that restless movement of the fingers 
and realised what a tremendous effort it was to him to 
unburden himself, but she knew that she must harden her 
heart and pay no heed to these signals of distress if she 
were ever to learn his history, and that she was determined 
to do, for she had a sort of feeling that something more 
than mere chance had brought about their strange meeting. 
Some subtle instinct told her that it was his misfortune and 



76 


A CERTAIN MAN 


not his fault that had reduced him to his present straights 
and, for the first time, she awakened to the fact of the 
power which lay in her hands to set his feet back on the 
path from which they had strayed. 

“ Well, then/’ he began with a rush. “ My name is- 

I think, if you don’t mind, we’ll let my name go.” 

*‘Td rather you told me,” she interrupted. 

“ Of course, if you wish it, I can’t very well refuse. My 
name, then, is Dibden, Roger Dibden. My father was a 
parson down in the country and, as I had no brothers or 
sisters and my mother died when I was quite a little chap, 
we had nobody but one another. I suppose, looking back, 
I had rather a lonely childhood, but I didn’t realise it at 
the time. We were tremendous pals, my father and I, and 
I didn’t seem to feel the need of anybody else. I had the 
usual up-bringing. I went to a private school when I was 
ten, and later on to a public school. There never appeared 
to be any lack of money. I had a weekly allowance the 
same as other boys, and the right kind of clothes, and I 
was allowed to ask my friends to come and stay in the 
holidays without feeling any qualms as to the hospitality 
I was able to offer them. I had a pony to ride and, in due 
course, a gun. I shot and fished and played cricket and 
football and generally had a good time like my pals and my 
father never by word or look hinted that he was hard put 
to it to make both ends meet. He ought to have told me. 
It wasn’t fair. He ought to have trusted me. It was only 
when he died that I discovered that the money he spent on 
my education, the money he poured out upon me for my 
own selfish gratifications and which he never denied me, 
the money which paid for my clothes and food and amuse¬ 
ments, in none of which things I was ever stinted in the 
smallest degree, was all borrowed. Like so many persons 
my old Dad knew about as much of business matters as a 
babe unborn. He started speculating with his small capital 
after my mother died and he was left alone with the pros¬ 
pect of my education to face in the not too distant 




A CERTAIN MAN 


77 


future. He was so proud of me, my old Dad, that any¬ 
thing but the very best in the way of schooling never even 
entered his head. For himself he was the most humble- 
minded man I have met, but for me nothing was too good. 
Of course the speculations went wrong and he lost the few 
thousands he had. This was the year before I went to 
school. I found that out from his diaries. I suppose he lost 
his head then, for he started borrowing from money-lenders 
with the usual result. The interest had to be paid and, of 
course, my expenses grew heavier as time went on. He got 
deeper and deeper into the slough and borrowed more 
money to pay the interest on the original loan and when 
he died (I was in France at the time) there wasn’t enough 
money, even after everything that could be sold had been, 
to pay what was owing.” He stopped abruptly and Biddy 
waited for him to go on, but at the end of a minute or 
two, when the silence continued and, to judge from his air 
of abstraction, he seemed to have let his thoughts wander on 
without any attempt to give voice to them, she gently 
jogged his memory. 

“You were in France. Was it during the war?” she 
asked. 

He nodded. 

“ I was eighteen when the war broke out,” he replied. 
“ I’d just finished my last term at school and was going to 
Oxford in October. Of course I joined up.” 

“ As a private?” 

“Yes. I didn’t get my commission for two and a half 
years.” 

“Was that before your father died?” 

“ Three months before. In a way that was luck, for I 
was able to save a bit out of my pay towards paying off 
the creditors.” 

“ Then?” 

Biddy felt rather like counsel examining a hostile witness, 
but she saw that it was only by questioning him that she 
would arrive at that part of his history which chiefly inter- 



78 


A CERTAIN MAN 


ested her, namely how he had reached his present low ebb, 
so she deliberately shut her eyes to his evident reluctance 
and ruthlessly continued her cross-examination. 

“ Then the end of the war came and I was demobbed. 
It never occurred to me that there could be any difficulty 
in finding a job. I thought employers would be tumbling 
over one another to give work to the men who had fought. 
I forgot that women had come into the field and filled up 
the gaps and weren’t too ready to vacate their posts. I 
overlooked the fact, too, that I had no experience. I was 
twenty-three and the only job I was really fitted for was 
that of office-boy and nobody seemed willing to engage 
me, at my age, in that capacity. My gratuity had followed 
what I could spare out of my pay into the pockets of the 
creditors so I was up against a pretty tough proposition, as 
you can imagine.” 

“ But — hadn’t you any friends who could have helped 
you?” 

He shrugged his shoulders. 

“ It was a case of ‘ I cannot dig, to beg I am ashamed’,” 
he said, and Biddy noticed the curious mixture of pride and 
self-contempt in his voice as he made the statement. 

“ Wasn’t it a little foolish?” she suggested. 

“ I was young then and youth is apt to act foolishly. I 
made so sure I could make good on my own.” 

“ You aren’t so very old now, are you?” Biddy observed. 
“ It is only three years ago.” 

“ One doesn’t reckon by years,” he answered. 

“ By what, then?” 

“ By experience. The causes of growing old are mental 
as much as physical. One reads of people whose hair has 
turned white in a single night as the result of some terrifying 
or, it may be, heart-breaking experience they have under¬ 
gone. There is no gradual process of decay. One day they 
are young, the next they are old. They leap, as it were, the 
chasm between youth and age. They don’t labouriously 
clamber down one side and up the other. You may call a 



A CERTAIN MAN 


79 


thing like that a physical consequence but, even so, it’s a 
lightning transformation from one state to another and 
if it can happen physically it can happen mentally. There 
aren’t always outward and visible signs of decay.” 

“ Well, what did you do then?” asked Biddy, sternly 
fetching him back from the side-track into which he had 
wandered. 

“ I struggled along as best I could, earning a few shillings 
here and there by directing envelopes and such-like jobs, 
which led nowhere and left me in no better position when I 
had finished them than I had been in when I began. At 
last, in a mood of desperation, I did bring myself to apply 
to one of those associations formed for the express purpose 
of assisting ex-officers to get jobs. They found me one, 
eventually, as clerk in a firm of wholesale drapers. It 
wasn’t exactly an exhilarating existence, but it gave me 
food to eat and clothes to put on my back and kept a roof 
over my head. It wasn’t what I would have chosen but I 
had no choice and I’d reached the pitch when I was thank¬ 
ful to be able to take no thought for the morrow. I went 
on fairly happily for eighteen months and then there was 
a change. The head clerk of the department in which I 
was, retired, and they put in his place a man from another 
branch of the business. Directly I saw him I knew I was 
in for trouble. He was a man I recognised, Charlton by 
name, and he came from a place called Keylock which was 
the next village to Harwood, my father’s parish. Years 
before, when he had been a young man living at home, he 
had got a girl, the daughter of one of the Harwood vil¬ 
lagers, into — disgrace, and my father had taken the case 
up and made it so hot for this Charlton that he had had 
to leave the district. He wasn’t the kind to take things 
lying down and almost the last thing he did before he went 
was to come to the Vicarage where he had a stormy inter¬ 
view with my father and left threatening to have his re¬ 
venge. He was so melodramatic and talked so like a stage 
villain that nobody paid any attention to his blustering 



80 


A CERTAIN MAN 


and in time it passed from my memory. He was too much 
of a cowardly bully to ever risk his own skin by fulfilling 
his threats of personal violence, but I knew, by his expres¬ 
sion when he realised who I was, that he had nursed his 
resentment all these years and that I might look out for 
squalls. I wasn’t mistaken either. From the day he took 
over he seized every opportunity to get a bit of his own 
back. He had the screw on me and whenever he saw a 
chance gave it a twist. He made sneering remarks about 
me to my fellow clerks. He found fault with my work. 
He complained to the manager about me, making out that I 
was incompetent, that I shirked my work, that I was lazy 
and insolent and good for nothing. He even went so far 
as to throw out hints that my honesty was not above sus¬ 
picion and, if I was going to be left alone in the office, 
ostentatiously locked up the drawer in which the petty cash 
was kept and took the key away in his pocket. I saw that 
his idea was to drive me away and just because of that I 
tried to stick it out. I bore it for six months and then, 
finding I suppose that he was no nearer accomplishing his 
purpose, he changed his tactics and suddenly one day 
started abusing my father, telling everybody, in front of me, 
how my father had educated me and brought me up to be 
‘ an imitation gentleman ’ on borrowed money, and ended 
up by calling him a ‘ beggarly, thieving parson.’ That fin¬ 
ished me. I saw red and went for him and got him down 
on the floor and I honestly believe I’d have choked the 
life out of him if they hadn’t pulled me off. I was dis¬ 
missed, of course, then and there, and told that I need not 
apply to the firm for a reference. That did me. When I 
went again to the Association and asked them to find me 
another berth they made enquiries and, naturally accepting 
the firm’s version of the reason for my being sent away 
without a character, refused to help me any further. That 
was last October. Since then I’ve done everything from 
breaking stones to touting for cabs. I’ve picked up any 
coppers in any way I could. Hunger’s a wonderful cure for 



A CERTAIN MAN 


81 


pride! But until tonight I’ve never begged. Tonight sees 
the beginning of the end.” 

“ You haven’t begged tonight,” Biddy said indignantly. 

“ I told you I was hungry and you gave me food.” 

“Lots of my guests tell me they’re hungry and I give 
them food.” 

“ It’s good of you to put it like that. And do lots of 
your guests tell you they had serious thoughts of stealing 
your jewelry?” 

“ Serious thoughts aren’t accomplished facts.” 

“No. But they’re the high road that leads to them.” 

“Well, you didn’t anyhow.” 

“No. I didn’t. There are drawbacks to having been 
brought up a gentleman, you see. I’ve come to the con¬ 
clusion that hunger is a wonderful incentive to robbery 
with violence. If I’d stopped to think the matter out you’d 
probably never have seen your pendant again. Better 
instincts — my better instincts at any rate — are con¬ 
structed to bear light temptations only.” 

There was a long pause when he had finished speaking, 
during which Biddy tried to find the right words with 
which to express herself, but before she could do so he got 
up from his chair. 

“ Thank you for a glimpse of paradise,” he said. “ The 
memory of this hour will be something to carry out with 
me into the darkness.” 

“ But you aren’t going like that,” Biddy cried in distress. 
“ Won’t you let me help you?” 

He drew himself up rather stiffly. 

“ Ah! Now you’re spoiling it,” he said regretfully. “ I 
wanted to think of this hour as one snatched from the days 
that are gone. I wanted to dream that there was one who 
had shut her eyes to the fact that I was just an under-dog, 
and who had condescended, for a brief moment, to be my 
— friend.” 

“ And to whom you deny the privileges of friendship! 
Do you call that consistent?” 



82 


A CERTAIN MAN 


He smiled. 

“ Are dreams ever consistent?” he asked wistfully. “ How 
can a shadow of the night linger on in the light of day?” 

Biddy tapped her foot impatiently. 

“ You mean you won’t accept my help?” 

He sighed despairingly. 

“ How can I make you understand?” he said. “ It sounds 
absurd, under the circumstances, to talk of conventionality 
and yet if you only knew how I long to deceive myself, to 
pretend we have met in the ordinary conventional manner in 
which we might have done if — if things had panned out 
differently.” 

“ Convention! The fetich which society savages wor¬ 
ship!” said Biddy contemptuously. “ If I was conventional 
do you suppose, for a moment, that I should have opened 
the door and let you in, that I should have sat here talking 
to you, that I should have listened to what you have told 
me? That for convention!” She snapped her fingers. 

The ghost of a twinkle of laughter flickered in his eyes. 

“ And yet,” he said, “ I’d be willing to bet that you won’t 
say a word to anybody in the morning about the midnight 
marauder. Mrs. Grundy is only scotched, not killed, by the 
war.” 

“ Mrs. Grundy!” 

How funny that he should have used that phrase. It was 
only at dinner that John had been saying much the same 
thing, she recollected. John! Of course! He was the very 
one to make use of in this emergency. Why had she not 
thought of him before? 

“ Look here,” she said abruptly. “ Will you go and see a 
friend of mine? I’m sure he could find some way to — to 
advise you. Tell him what you’ve just told me. You can 
even tell him how we came to meet. He’s a great admirer of 
Mrs. Grundy’s, but I’m perfectly certain that he’ll admit 
that in this case nothing has occurred to outrage her sus¬ 
ceptibilities in the slightest degree.” 

He glanced ruefully at his clothes. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


83 


“ Oh, they don’t matter,” Biddy said lightly. “ He lives 
in — let me see— Eddis Street, where, I believe, clothes 
are a concession to human weakness.” 

“Where is Eddis Street?” 

“ It’s in the East End somewhere,” she returned doubt¬ 
fully. “ There’s his card on the mantelpiece.” 

He went across and looked at it. 

“ He’s a parson! ” he exclaimed when he had done so. 

“ Well. And if he is, what then?” 

Roger shook his head. 

“ Parsons collect vagrants like schoolboys collect stamps. 
I should be classified and stuck in a little book and trotted 
out occasionally as an example of my species. No, thanks.” 

“ My parson isn’t a bit like that.” A sudden idea struck 
her. “ Look here, if you’re shy of going alone, I’ll meet 
you there.” 

His eyes glistened. 

“ Will you? If you only knew how you tempted me.” 

“Why not succumb?” Biddy said, seeing him begin to 
waver. 

“ By George! I will,” he said, suddenly giving way. 
“ That is, if you’re sure you don’t mind? What I mean is, 
you may feel differently when you come to think it over. 
I should hate to do it if — if it made it awkward. You see 
it — it isn’t exactly usual to — to shelter casuals in the dead 
of night.” 

Biddy rose from her seat. 

“ You’ll make me angry soon, Mr. Dibden,” she said. 

“ I wouldn’t do that for the world,” he declared con¬ 
tritely. “ Well, then, I’ll go. What time shall I be there?” 

“ Five o’clock.” 

“ Right-oh, and — thanks awfully.” 

Biddy liked him for not saying more. She somehow felt 
that any profuse protestations of gratitude would have 
savoured of the “ Gawd bless yer, lidy” of the professional 
beggar and would have raised doubts in her mind. As it 
was, the simple declaration of thanks, which might have 



84 


A CERTAIN MAN 


proceeded with equal propriety from one of her partners at 
the end of a dance with him, only served to strengthen her 
belief that he had given her a plain ungarbled history of 
himself. 

She gave him her hand before letting him out of the front 
door and he just held it in his for an instant, then he was 
gone. 

“ Poor Mrs. Grundy,” she said to herself as she once 
again started on her way upstairs. “ I wonder if she is 
having a bad nightmare!” 



CHAPTER VI 


John had passed a disturbed night revolving in his 
mind the events of the preceding day from the moment 
when Biddy had so suddenly and unexpectedly appeared in 
his godmother’s drawing room in Barrie Mansions. 

Whenever he had thought of her during the time that had 
elapsed since they had last met he had always pictured 
her as she had been then, a lanky schoolgirl with skirts 
above her knees, bare legs and feet, and her hair done in a 
thick plait hanging down over one shoulder. 

Of course, if he had brought his common sense to bear, 
he would have realised that she could not have remained a 
schoolgirl, that, in the natural course of events, she must 
have grown up and become a woman, but, not knowing in 
what form she had emerged from the chrysalis state, he 
had gone on imagining her as she had been then, without 
troubling to draw upon his fancy. 

Therefore when, without any warning, she had appeared 
before his astonished eyes as the finished article it had 
proved somewhat disconcerting, and he found it difficult to 
dovetail in the Biddy of the present with the Biddy he 
had parted from twelve years previously, though he 
admitted that it was not so much a change as a development 
which had taken place. The half-finished sketch had been 
worked upon until it was now the completed picture. 

From Biddy herself his mind wandered to Miss Bellamy 
and her confidences and he began to speculate whether per¬ 
haps, in her anxiety for her former pupil, she was not 
inclined to exaggerate the position she had outlined. 

He had certainly not been particularly favourably struck 
by the trio he had met at dinner, but then everybody knew 
people who failed to arouse any enthusiasm in the breasts of 
their other friends. To argue from this that they were 

85 


86 


A CERTAIN MAN 


actually undesirable was a dangerous doctrine. He was 
inclined to agree with Miss Bellamy’s estimate of Mrs. 
Panter. He judged her, from the very slight opportunity he 
had had of arriving at any conclusion on the subject, to be 
one of those woman morally hard of hearing, who heed the 
voice of public opinion but are deaf to the still small whis¬ 
per of conscience. No doubt she would exploit Biddy to 
the best of her ability, being one of those people who set 
a market value on their affections and look for repayment 
in kind, if not in cash, for services rendered. Mrs. Panter, 
John shrewdly suspected, would, without any compunction 
whatever, cut her friends according to their cloth. 

Miss Bellamy, he acknowledged, was better situated to 
arrive at definite conclusions with regard to any little plot 
which the lady might be hatching in connection with her 
brother and her (temporarily) dearest friend than he him¬ 
self could possibly be but, all the same, he was forced to 
own that he had not been able to detect any marked signs of 
a cabal between Mrs. Panter and her brother for the 
enmeshing of Biddy and, incidentally, her worldly goods. 
As far as John had been in a position to notice Reggie 
Franklin had behaved to his hostess with no more than the 
ordinary politeness expected of a guest who is on fairly 
intimate terms with the mistress of the house where he is 
being entertained. 

Of course, as Miss Bellamy had pointed out, it was hardly 
to be supposed that the pair would behave too patently like 
the orthodox stage villain and adventuress in a cheap 
melodrama, but even without that there would surely have 
been some slight indication that Mr. Franklin had hopes 
in that direction if such had been the case. The swain 
who, rightly or wrongly, considers himself the favoured one 
generally anticipates the future by adopting a proprietorial 
attitude towards the object of his desires, and John certainly 
had failed to observe anything of the kind in the attitude 
of Mrs. Panter’s brother towards Biddy. 

As for Sir Charles, he was merely an aadle-pated and 



A CERTAIN MAN 


87 


rather impertinent youth who would be all the better for a 
good sound spanking but, apart from that, there appeared 
to be nothing in him, good, bad, or indifferent. John dis¬ 
missed him summarily from his thoughts as not being worth 
thinking about. 

And he himself was cast for the uninteresting part of 
“ landmark,” John recollected with misgiving, tossing from 
side to side in his bed which seemed with each passing 
moment to grow hotter and harder. He wasn’t at all sure 
if he cared for it. It somehow sounded so stodgy and dull. 

Landmarks were things which went on for years and 
years without change until they were swept away and it 
wasn’t till then that people realised they were landmarks. 

As a matter of fact John had not slept quite so badly as 
he imagined. No one ever does pass quite such a bad 
night as he thinks he has. The poor sleeper, like the golfer 
and the fisherman, always allows himself a certain latitude 
when recounting his experiences. For two or three hours after 
he got into bed John had spent the time in alternatingly 
dozing and waking again to resume his interrupted cogita¬ 
tions, but after that he fell sound asleep and never roused 
until Mr. Ottoway, who spared his wife’s susceptibilities by 
calling their lodger in the morning (Mrs. Ottoway not 
“ holding with ” entering a gentleman’s bedroom when the 
occupant of it was “ in bed and asleep ” unless he happened 
to be ill, in which case apparently the sex disqualification 
was removed), greeted the morn by dropping a boot with a 
crash on the sloping tin back of the hip-bath which was 
set out ready, whence it slithered down into the water. 

Mr. Ottoway was a thin spare man with a peculiar cone- 
shaped head sparsely covered with sandy hair, going gray 
in patches, which hung in a lank fringe from the circular 
bald spot which marked the apex of the cone. He always 
reminded John of a liver and white spaniel he had once 
possessed that he had had to destroy owing to chronic 
mange. He spent most of his time in passing from one 
paroxysm of surprise to another and the most ordinary hap- 



88 


A CERTAIN MAN 


penings of life reduced him to a state of amazed wonder. 

When, for instance, Mrs. Ottoway’s niece, Jane, married 
a young man whom she had known from childhood and by 
whom she had been courted for years, Mr. Ottoway was 
speechless with astonishment and when, in due and proper 
course, an infant arrived upon the scenes, he was so taken 
aback by the unexpectedness of the event, despite the 
whispered confabulations of the ladies of his family on the 
subject and the fact that his wife employed her evenings 
in stitching at diminutive garments, that, on seeing his 
great-niece for the first time, he apostrophized her as “ you 
little surprise packet,” to the indignation of her parents 
who objected, very naturally, to the inference. 

He would insist on regaling John with little anecdotes 
culled from the papers which he usually prefaced with some 
such remark as “I was readin’ of a ’ighly ’umorous inci¬ 
dent which ’appened at a funeral the other day ” or “ Did 
you come across that sad accident that occurred at a wed- 
din’ lately?” 

He was, by profession, a porter at a furniture depository 
but at seven o’clock each morning, unless John had gone to 
an early service, usurped the duties of a valet and appeared 
in his room laden with cans of hot water and suits of clothes 
and boots, all of which he deposited in a confused heap on 
the floor, as if he had just removed them out of a pantechni¬ 
con, before proceeding to sort them out and put them in 
their proper places. 

When therefore he loosened the finger and thumb between 
which he was carrying the pair of boots and they, obeying 
the dictates of the law of gravity, fell earthwards, the one, 
as has already been stated, into the bath and the other on to 
his best corn, he was extremely surprised. 

“Well, there to be sure!” he exclaimed in accents of 
acute wonder. “ ’Owever did that come to ’appen?” 

John sat up in bed and watched him while he carefully 
placed the rest of the things he was carrying, including the 
can of hot water, out of harm’s way on the top of the 



A CERTAIN MAX 


89 


chest of drawers, after which he proceeded gingerly to fish 
the boot out of the bath and hold it upside down over it 
to drip black drips back into the water. 

u I’ve had a rotten night. Ottoway.” John observed, with 
that touch of self-importance which so often accompanies 
the statement. 

“ Dear, dear! T Ave you indeed. Sir?” replied Mr. Ottoway, 
giving the boot a little shake to hasten the dripping process. 
He didn’t appear to be greatly impressed with the news and 
evidently considered that the accident to the boot had 
first claim upon his attention. 

“ I never slept a wink till three.’’ John persisted, stung to 
exaggeration by Mr. Ottoway’s seeming indifference to bis 
tale of woe. 

“ Is that so. Sir?" said Mr. Ottoway politely, giving the 
boot a final shake. “ I'll take this down to dry at the fire, 
Sir. It ain’t no manner of use cleanin’ it again while wet. 
You’ll ave to wear another pair.” 

** Three." repeated John firmly, determined not to forego 
his Harm on Mr. Ottoway’s sympathy, however unwilling 
the other might be to tender it. 

His makeshift valet, having dealt with the problem on 
hand to his own satisfaction, felt himself at liberty to lend 
a more or less ready ear to John's plaints. 

“ You never rightly know what you’re earin’ and drinkin’ 
at the West End earin' 'ouses. It’s a touch o T liver I 
dessav." he r emar ked consolingly. “ There was a case I 
was reactin' in the paper a few weeks back (perraps you 
saw it. Sir?), where a party was lunch in’ at a restorong in 
the city they ’ad oysters and -” 

- Its not liver,” John interrupted him ruthlessly. To lie 
awake from the s entimen ts evoked by meeting again, unex¬ 
pected! v and after the lapse of years, his first love and then 
to have it attributed to earing oysters (in May. too!) was 
more than he could bear without protest. 

“ Besides oysters don’t upset your liver," he went on dog¬ 
ged! v. “ They give you typhoid.” 




90 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“ And a nasty disease that is,” said Mr. Ottoway cheer¬ 
fully. “I’d a deal sooner ’ave my liver upset. There! If 
I ’aven’t gone and left your can of hot water on the chest. 
Your bath looks a bit dirty, Sir,” he continued affably, 
fetching the can and pouring the hot water in, “ but I 
idessay the blacking won’t come off on you,” he added 
hopefully. 

The effects of his unsatisfactory night had passed off by 
the time John had dressed and had his breakfast. It was 
so unusual for him not to fall asleep the minute his head 
touched the pillow that the occurrence had really rather 
worried him. Like most thoroughly healthy people he 
resented the slightest divergence from the ordinary physical 
routine as something reflecting on his moral character, 
something to be ashamed of, although, inconsistently 
enough, he had taken Mr. Ottoway into his confidence in 
this case; but that had been done in a spirit of bravado, 
much as a small boy brags to an older companion of some 
delinquency he has committed in the hopes that it will 
raise him in the estimation of his senior. It gave him, too, 
a certain feeling of importance in his own eyes and, if he 
could only have traced the connection, was probably a 
subtle form of protest against tamely submitting to play the 
unimportant role of “ landmark,” though he did not recog¬ 
nise it as such and would have scouted the idea if it had 
been suggested to him. 

At a quarter to ten, just as he was preparing to start 
for Matins, a daily part of his duties, a knock sounded at 
the front door and a minute later Mrs. Ottoway appeared 
bearing a telegram. 

Mrs. Ottoway disapproved of telegrams on principle, not 
so much because they might, and occasionally did, bring 
bad news, as because of the expense involved in sending 
them. She was also of the opinion that it gave an oppor¬ 
tunity to the post office officials to gossip about the private 
affairs of other people and she even went so far as to 
attribute the loss of a parcel, the dispatch of which she 



A CERTAIN MAN 


91 


had been advised of by wire, to a leakage in this quarter. 

Therefore she let it be clearly seen by her ostentatious 
air of aloofness, as she handed the missive to John, that she 
was no party to it and entirely dissociated herself with what¬ 
ever news it might contain. 

“ The boy is waiting,” was the sole remark she permitted 
herself to make on the subject and while John tore open the 
envelope she gazed abstractedly straight in front of her in 
stony silence lest, by word or look, she should be suspected 
of any display of interest in its contents. 

“ Coming to see you four-thirty. Please be in. Very 
important business. Biddy,” ran the message which John 
read with some amusement. It was typical of the old 
Biddy he had known to take it for granted that there was 
no question of anything being allowed to interfere with her 
plans and that everybody would fall in with them at what¬ 
ever personal inconvenience to themselves and she evidently 
had the vaguest ideas as to the multifarious duties of a 
clergyman or the calls upon his time. 

He picked up the engagement book lying at his elbow 
and turned to the date. As it happened there was nothing 
he could not put off and he shut it again with a feeling of 
relief. He would have hated to refuse Biddy anything. 

“ There’s no answer,” he said, and Mrs. Ottoway per¬ 
mitted herself a smile of gratification. She had a vague 
idea that if the boy was returned “ empty ” so to speak, 
the postal authorities would, somehow or other, be scored off. 

She was on her way out to dismiss the messenger when 
John called after her. 

“ Wait a jiffy,” he said. “ Perhaps I’d better send a 
wire.” 

Mrs. Ottoway’s face fell. The mocking laugh of a tri¬ 
umphant Postmaster General sounded in her ears and a 
vision of the young person with bobbed hair who, like a 
rabbit in its hutch, coldly regarded the outside world 
through a network of wire at the neighbouring post office, 
rose before her eyes. Only last week the young person in 



92 


A CERTAIN MAN 


question had proved Mrs. Ottoway to be at fault on the 
subject of the right amount of change due to her after a 
stamp transaction, and that, too, in front of Mrs. Willard 
who lived at No. 25 just opposite, and whom Mrs. Ottoway 
was inclined to patronise. 

However it was not her province to interfere. She had 
merely conveyed the telegram to John because it was her 
duty to do so and, if needs must, she would carry the 
answer to the boy outside in the same spirit of detachment. 

So she waited while John rapidly pencilled a reply, saying 
he would expect Biddy at the time named and, when it was 
delivered over to her care, Mrs. Ottoway, holding it care¬ 
fully away from contact with her apron as if it were some¬ 
thing that might infect her if she didn’t take precautionary 
measures, departed. 

It must be confessed that John’s thoughts were a little 
inclined to wander during Matins. He had only parted 
from Biddy at eight o’clock the previous evening and 
already she was demanding an interview on “ business.” 
What business could possibly have cropped up in so short 
an interval? Could it have any connection with the house 
at Porth Ros about which she had told Miss Bellamy? If so, 
that lady had not let the grass grow under her feet. But it 
couldn’t be that. Miss Bellamy had to see the doctor before 
she could take any further steps to forward the plot that 
had been concocted for the good of Biddy’s soul. It was 
a useless waste of time to try and guess at the reason for 
her descent upon Eddis Street, but all the same John wasted 
quite a considerable portion of his which might have been 
better employed. It was very reprehensible, no doubt, that 
Biddy and her affairs should have been permitted to obtrude 
themselves upon the Order for Morning Prayer but the un¬ 
fortunate fact remained that so it was and if, in the Litany 
which followed, John was within an ace of substituting her 
name for that of the Queen-Mother, nobody in the congre¬ 
gation was any the wiser. It rested entirely between him¬ 
self and his own conscience. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


93 


. All the rest of the morning and all the time he was eating 
his frugal lunch John, at frequent intervals, pondered over 
what Biddy’s reason could be in tearing down helter-skelter 
to the East End, a part of London he was sure she had 
never been to before in her life. It must be business of a 
very imperative nature that necessitated such immediate 
consultation. 

However, it was no earthly good cudgelling his brains to 
find an answer to the riddle. To do so was about as much 
use as to pore over the unknown handwriting on an envelope 
in the hopes of discovering the signature at the end of the 
letter inside. 

In the afternoon he went out to pay some visits, taking 
a circuitous route to where he was bound for in order that 
he might pass the watchmaker’s in Inman Road and com¬ 
pare his watch with the clock in Pole’s window which pro¬ 
fessed to give the correct Greenwich time, and all through 
the harrowing description of the late Mr. Free’s last illness 
as narrated by his disconsolate widow and in the midst of 
suitable comments on the deplorable state of old Mrs. 
Luard’s bad legs as graphically described by herself with 
all the horrid details, he kept one eye on the time in order 
that he might not be late and make Biddy wait. 

He arrived back in Eddis Street bearing a confectioner’s 
bag with an assortment in it of the least uninteresting cakes 
he was able to run to earth, horrid doubts assailing him as 
to whether the young lady behind the counter was not 
stretching a point when she assured him they were fresh 
that morning. The one at which he had surreptitiously 
poked a forefinger, when her back was turned for a second, 
had certainly shown no signs of yielding to the touch, but 
not being positive whether it was intended to be hard or 
soft he had not had the courage to criticise, but accepted her 
word meekly. He had broken the news to Mrs. Ottoway 
that he was expecting a lady to tea, and when he walked 
into his sitting room she was just completing the prepara¬ 
tions by setting, in the middle of the table, a perfectly 



94 


A CERTAIN MAN 


hideous china vase of turquoise blue encircled by arsenic- 
green leaves which stood out in bas-relief and were intended 
to represent a wreath of ivy. Into this, as a concession to 
John’s lamentable weakness for flowers and because it was 
a special occasion, she had tightly crammed a bunch of 
wall-flowers and she was surveying the result with an air 
in which pride and a consciousness that she was acting 
against her better judgment by encouraging her lodger’s 
idiosyncracies were inextricably blended. 

She was breathing heavily with excitement and with every 
breath her stays creaked audibly until it seemed almost 
equal chances whether or no they would stand the strain put 
upon them. 

“ My niece sent ’em up from the country,” she explained 
apologetically directly she caught sight of John. “ I ’ad 
to litter ’em somewhere and I knew you ’ad a leaning 
towards flowers.” 

She spoke as one unwilling to be too hard on the short¬ 
comings of a weaker brother, and John accepted the implied 
rebuke with becoming humility. 

“ They’re lovely. Thanks awfully,” he said. 

“ You’ll be setting up for yourself in the country soon, 
I dessay,” said Mrs. Ottoway, speaking rather as though 
John were in the grocery line and there was a likelihood of 
his purchasing the good-will of the general stores in some 
country village. 

“ What on earth do you mean?” he enquired in bewilder¬ 
ment. 

Mrs. Ottoway smiled diffidently. 

“ When you’re married,” she ventured. 

“ But I’m not going to be married,” John declared. 

“ Ah!” said Mrs. Ottoway impressively. “There’s many 
a young man talks big the same as you and thinks to escape 
out of the snare of the fowler but a bird in the ’and don’t 
raise so much as a chirrup, as well I know, being married 
myself. It’s gone half-past four, Sir. The lady’ll be here 
soon.” 



A CERTAIN MAN 


95 


John gasped as though a bucket of cold water had been 
thrown over him and then, to his intense annoyance, realised 
that his face was crimson as the purport of Mrs. Ottoway’s 
speech reached his brain. She had, it was evident, already 
arranged a marriage between him and Biddy and from the 
fact that the lady had, barefacedly, telegraphed to the 
gentleman announcing her intention of paying him a visit, 
had determined in her own mind that the gentleman was the 
hunted and not the hunter. 

John tried hard to feel indignant but somehow, when he 
came to analyze it, the suggestion, in spite of its palpable 
absurdity, was not without its attractive side. It was so 
ridiculous and so obviously remote from the truth that 
he could afford to let his imagination run riot a little and 
he played lightly with the fancy of what his sensations 
would be now if it were really as Mrs. Ottoway had hinted 
(only with the positions reversed, of course) and if his 
intention was to put it to the touch this very afternoon. 

Once again he experienced that odd tickling sensation in 
the region of his top waistcoat button and he hurriedly 
pulled himself together. Good heavens! Wherever was he 
letting his thoughts carry him? He was a landmark. He 
must remember that. Landmarks didn’t give the rein to 
their imaginations in this way. He must instantly disabuse 
Mrs. Ottoway of her sentimental notion. 

“ Mrs. Rycroft is an old friend of mine,” he said, with 
an emphasis on the first word. He supposed the emphasis 
reduced the perfectly truthful remark to the low level of a 
white lie, but he was too desperate to stop to thresh the 
matter out with his conscience at present. That must come 
later, if necessary. Meanwhile he must hope for the best. 

He was pleased to see Mrs. Ottoway’s jaw drop, as far as 
her congestion of chins would allow it to do such a thing. 

“ Oh, ‘ Mrs.’, is she?” she exclaimed, in disappointed 
tones, but she brightened up the next second. “ But ’er 
’usband isn’t coming with ’er?” she wound up. 

“ Great Scott! I should hope not!” John almost shouted, 



96 


A CERTAIN MAN 


then, suddenly recollecting that the statement might be open 
to misconstruction, made Biddy’s exact status clear. 

“ She’s a widow,” he informed Mrs. Ottoway. 

“Oh!” she ejaculated, with a wealth of hidden meaning 
in her voice, “ one o’ them war-widows, I dessay?” 

“ No,” John answered curtly. “ Colonel Rycroft was over 
sixty when war broke out.” 

It was at this precise moment that Biddy’s car went 
slowly by the window and stopped at the door, with Biddy 
herself, looking young and radiant, seated in it. 

“Oh! Over sixty, was he?” observed Mrs. Ottoway 
reflectively. 



CHAPTER VII 


“ Well, John, I’ve not been long in coming to tea with 
Mrs. Grundy, have I?” Biddy said, as the person addressed 
opened the front door for her, having beaten Mrs. Ottoway 
in the race there by a good length and a half. 

“ Mrs. Grundy’s delighted to see you,” John replied. 
“ Come along in and be introduced. I don’t believe you’ve 
met her before.” 

He was painfully conscious of his landlady’s presence in 
the immediate background, as evidenced by her heavy 
breathing to the accompaniment of the creaking stays, and 
he knew, too, that she was taking in every detail of the 
scene being enacted before her eyes and drawing totally 
wrong conclusions therefrom, so he hurried Biddy into the 
sitting room and hastily closed the door, a proceeding which 
only served to confirm Mrs. Ottoway’s suspicions. 

“What a funny little room!” Biddy said, with more 
truth than politeness, when she had seated herself. “ Is this 
where you work?” 

“ I do some of my work here. For instance, this is where 
I prepare those eloquent sermons of which you had a sample 
last night.” 

“I know.” Biddy’s eyes twinkled. “ I love Mrs. Grundy, 
her coat is so warm.” 

“ And if I don’t hurt her she’ll do me no harm,” John, 
greatly daring, finished the quotation in a very fair imita¬ 
tion of the sing-song voice in which Mrs. Panter had deliv¬ 
ered it the evening before and was rather relieved when 
Biddy laughed. He had been a tiny bit afraid lest she 
might take offence. 

“ Well, I haven’t hurt her,” she said defiantly. 

“ Then she’ll do you no harm,” John remarked with 
aplomb. “ Is the business you mentioned in your wire any- 

97 


98 


A CERTAIN MAN 


thing to do with her, Biddy?” For it suddenly struck him 
that there might be some connection between the abrupt 
sentence hurled at his head and her visit to Eddis Street this 
afternoon, though where it came in he could not for the life 
of him see. 

Biddy considered the question. 

“ I suppose in a way it has,” she answered thoughtfully. 

There was a pause while John waited for her to go on. 

“ You must meet lots of failures, John,” she said at 
length, with apparent irrelevance. 

“No man — or woman — is a failure till he gives up 
trying. That’s not my dictum, Biddy. A larger-hearted 
man than I shall ever be said it. There are failures, of 
course; there are those who have just let go of everything 
and are too tired, too out of heart, to try any longer. 
They’re stripped and left for dead at the roadside and no 
good Samaritan journeys by and has compassion on them 
or binds up their wounds and so they just lie there, 
untended, until they die like a dog in a ditch.” 

“ I’m glad you feel like that, John,” Biddy said simply. 
“ Because — ” 

She broke off what she had been going to say and 
hesitated. 

“ Because what, Biddy?” asked John encouragingly. 

“Because last night I met somebody who — who’ll die 
like a dog in a ditch if his wounds aren’t bound up,” Biddy 
said with a rush. 

“ Yes?” 

“ That’s why I came to you.” 

John looked at her curiously. 

“Why to me?” 

“ Because you’re so — so understanding. You wouldn’t 
judge your fellowmen from appearances only. You would 
never think that because a man is down and out he’s not 
worth trying to save. Because a man has gone under 
through no fault of his own, you wouldn’t condemn him 
unheard, would you?” 



A CERTAIN MAN 


99 


“ I hope I’d never have so much impertinence, Biddy. 
‘ But for the grace of God, there go I’.” 

“ But I don’t quite see where Mrs. Grundy comes in,” 
he added as an afterthought. 

“ She doesn’t come in, that’s my difficulty,” said Biddy 
with a grimace. 

“ You see she wasn’t there to chaperone me when I — 
journeyed by, and — and it was, rather an unconventional 
time at which to be binding up the wounds of an entirely 
strange young man.” 

“What time was it?” enquired John. 

“ It was four o’clock in the morning, John,” Biddy 
replied in a still, small voice. 

“ Four o’clock in the morning!” repeated John in consid¬ 
erable surprise. 

“ Yes, John,” said Biddy. 

John, who up till now had been standing, sat down with 
some promptitude. 

“ Look here, you’d better tell me all about it,” he said, 
leaning forward till his face was on a level with hers. 

So Biddy told him all about it. She told him how Roger 
Dibden had knocked on her door, how she had rescued him 
from the clutches of the law and brought him in and given 
him food and drink, how he had restored her lost property, 
and, finally, she recounted his history and the events which 
had landed him in his present straits. 

John listened in silence until she had ended the recital. 
Once or twice he had made as though to speak but each 
time he checked himself and waited for her to finish before 
he made any comments. It was not until the peroration 
that he even permitted himself a change of countenance and 
then that was only because it was so characteristic. 

“ And what’s more,” Biddy challenged him, “ I’d do it 
again under the same circumstances.” 

“ I’ve no doubt you would,” John agreed. “ But seri¬ 
ously, Biddy, putting convention on one side (I’m no con¬ 
ventionalist you know), wasn’t it rather a dangerous experi- 




100 


A CERTAIN MAN 


ment? It turned out all right as it happened, but supposing 
your visitor had seized the opportunity to bash you over 
the head with the fire-irons and decamp with your silver? 
I’m afraid that at the subsequent trial you’d have got scant 
sympathy from judge and jury!” 

“ But then, you see, he wasn’t just an ordinary tramp,” 
expostulated Biddy. “ He was a gentleman.” 

John shook his head. 

“ Ah, Biddy,” he said with a sigh, “ if you only knew how 
many hundreds there are, in London alone, who began life 
as gentlemen. I could tell you of men within a stone’s 
throw of this very room in which we’re sitting, well-born, 
well-connected, with relations whose names are famous 
wherever the English language is spoken, who started with 
every advantage that position and wealth can give and who 
have sold their birthright for a mess of pottage and, having 
done so, have sunk deeper and deeper into the mire 
until there’s no vice in which they have not steeped 
themselves, no crime too dastardly for them to shrink from 
committing. Pride of birth, honour, love, self-respect, all 
have gone into the melting-pot. Their gentility is part of 
their stock in trade. They use it as a cloak to cover the 
nakedness of their souls. What proof have you that your 
protege is not one of these?” 

“ All the proof I want,” flashed out Biddy. “ If Mr. 
Dibden had been one of the sort of people you’ve been talk¬ 
ing about he wouldn’t have taken the trouble to return my 
pendant. John, why are you going back on your own 
words like this? He’s not a failure yet, but he very soon 
will be if — if we don’t tend him. He refused my help last 
night. He wouldn’t have done that if he’d been a fraud. 
Oh, do believe he isn’t! Do, John!” 

There were tears in her eyes as she made her appeal and 
John was stirred by her earnestness, but he knew the under¬ 
world better than Biddy did and though the return of the 
pendant might be a proof of this stranger’s honesty, it 
might equally be a trap of some sort. At the same time he 



A CERTAIN MAN 


101 


shrank from the responsibility of condemning this man, 
whom Biddy championed so stoutly, as a trickster, without 
further evidence. To assume too readily that he was out¬ 
side the pale was to run the risk of putting him there, 
whereas, if it were a genuine case, a helping hand held out 
at the crucial moment might save a soul alive. 

“ I could judge so much better if I could only see him,” 
he said, in bewilderment. 

“ But you’re going to see him!” exclaimed Biddy, forget¬ 
ting, in the stress of excitement, that she had quite omitted 
to warn John of the compact she had made with her last 
night’s visitor. 

“ Oh, am I?” remarked the mystified John. 

“Why, of course you are. Didn’t I tell you?” 

“ You certainly did not,” he informed her. 

“ I arranged for him to be here at five. You don’t mind, 
do you?” 

“I’ll be delighted to receive him — if he comes,” John 
observed a trifle grimly. 

“ He’ll come right enough,” Biddy declared with con¬ 
viction. 

“ Why this certainty?” enquired John. 

A dimple appeared in Biddy’s cheek to be instantly 
suppressed. 

“ Why did Adam eat the apple, John?” she asked, coun¬ 
tering his question with another. 

“ Because the woman — Biddy, you — you little —” 

“ Devil,” prompted Biddy. “ Do say it, John. It sounds 
so friendly.” 

“ All right. Devil, then,” said John, goaded to des¬ 
peration. 

“ Thank you, John,” Biddy said gratefully. “ It’s like 
old times to hear it.” 

“Biddy! I never called you — that, in old times,” 
exclaimed John in horror. 

“ Oh, no, I was thinking of James,” said Biddy 
absently. 



102 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“Who the — Who is James?” demanded John fiercely. 

“ My husband, John,” answered Biddy demurely. “ He 
suffered a good deal from gout. I am given to understand 
that under those painful circumstances bad language is quite 
permissible. Do you suffer from gout, John?” 

“ No. I do not John almost shouted. 

“I was only trying to find excuses for you,” said Biddy 
in hurt tones. “ A parson’s choice of suitable expressions in 
times of trouble is so circumscribed, isn’t it? One dear old 
parson I knew told me that, whenever anything happened 
to upset him, he always locked himself into his study and 
ready the commination service out loud.” 

“ You are the limit, Biddy. My mentality isn’t equal to 
the strain of keeping pace with you. I thought we were 
in the middle of a serious conversation,” John said. 

“ I thought we’d finished it, for the present,” returned 
Biddy. “ We’ve said all there is to be said until Mr. Dib- 
den comes.” 

“ And here he is,” she added, as a ring sounded at the 
front door bell. “Apologize!” 

They listened breathlessly as they heard Mrs. Ottoway’s 
ponderous footsteps pass along the passage outside. 

From the dialogue which ensued the new arrival didn’t 
appear to be having a very cordial reception. 

“ Is this where Mr. Ffoulkes lives?” This in a man’s 
voice. 

“ Yes.” This somewhat curtly from Mrs. Ottoway. 

“ Can I see him, please?” 

“ Well, you can’t at present. ’E’s very particular 
engaged.” 

“ Oh! Is he likely to be disengaged soon?” 

“ Not for some time.” 

“ I’d better go to the rescue,” John said, and getting up 
he went out hurriedly. 

“ Is that Mr. Dibden?” he asked when he reached the 
passage. 

Mrs. Ottoway revolved slowly on her axis. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


103 


“ I can’t say, I’m sure,” she said loftily. She was a little 
put out that John should choose the exact minute to appear 
in which she was denying access to him. 

“ You are Mr. Dibden, aren’t you?” he enquired, address¬ 
ing himself to the top of his visitor’s head which was the 
only portion of him visible behind Mrs. Ottoway’s bulky 
form. 

That lady, feeling that the matter had been taken sum¬ 
marily out of her hands, executed a flank movement which 
propelled John into the umbrella stand and retired hurt 
to the back regions to assist the kettle to boil. Never 
again would she waste her time in building romances, she 
determined, as she heard her lodger invite the seedy-looking 
young man to come in, after he had allowed that he was 
Mr. Dibden. 

“ Bring an extra cup, will you, Mrs. Ottoway,” were 
the last words that reached her ears as she shut herself into 
the kitchen, alone with her shattered dreams. 

“ I’m sorry I’m late — Sir,” Roger said as he stepped 
into the narrow hall. “ It took me longer getting here than 
I thought it would.” 

John noticed the slight hesitancy over the mode of 
address and guessed that it cost some effort on his guest’s 
part to acknowledge thus openly the superior position of one 
whom, but for force of circumstances, he would have met 
as an equal. He judged Roger Dibden to be a few years his 
junior but the slight difference in age was certainly not 
sufficient to justify the younger man addressing the older as 
“ Sir,” although in the army, it is true, he had known cases 
where a middle-aged lieutenant with hair going gray had 
been under the painful necessity of thus marking the sub¬ 
ordinacy of his rank to that of a youthful major who had 
been in his cradle at the time when his “ junior ” was 
already worshipping Letty Lind from the front row of the 
stalls. 

Still, the army was the army and had manners and cus¬ 
toms of its own. Civilian life was different. In civilian life 



104 


A CERTAIN MAN 


there weren’t the same anomalies of rank as in the army in 
war-time. 

This man was either a gentleman or he was not and, if he 
was, that touch of servility must be checked, otherwise it 
would spread and spread until it ceased to be a mark of 
respect and grew to be a grovelling submission to any power 
which might choose to exercise its authority. If he was to be 
rescued from the maelstrom into which he had slipped he 
must hold up his head above the swirling waters, even if 
he could feel no solid ground beneath his feet. 

John summed up the situation rapidly. He realised that 
at the faintest suspicion of patronage Roger would withdraw 
into his shell and that no power on earth would dislodge 
him. The only hope lay in trying to make him believe he 
was conferring a favour and not accepting one. He must 
be treated as a client, not a suppliant. Therefore, 

“ It’s awfully nice of you to want my advice,” John said, 
skillfully steering between the unnatural heartiness of the 
parson who wants to make it perfectly clear that he is no 
respecter of persons, and the lofty condescension of the 
individual who, seeing a worm in his path, steps aside to 
avoid treading on it. 

“ Not, I’m afraid, that it’s worth much,” he added. 

“ It’s awfully good of you to let me come and bother 
you,” Roger returned, not quite able to keep the surprise 
he felt out of his voice. He had so thoroughly made up 
his mind that he was to be disposed of and arranged for 
without his own wishes being consulted and had determined 
beforehand to resist being bullied or cajoled into any 
schemes for his social regeneration which smacked in the 
slightest degree of a self-constituted divine right on the 
part of this unknown parson to dictate to him, that it 
rather took the wind out of his sails to find that he was 
considered eligible to bear a part in the management of his 
own affairs. 

“ Oh, that’s all right,” John said easily. “ Come along in 



A CERTAIN MAN 


105 


and have some tea. It’ll be ready in a minute. Mrs. Ry- 
croft’s here.” 

“Mrs. Rycroft? Is — is that the lady I — I saw last 
night?” 

It was John’s turn to be surprised. 

“ Didn’t you know her name?” he asked. 

Roger shook his head. 

“ No,” he said simply. 

“ But didn’t you ask?” 

“ No,” he said again. “ You see I thought she’d tell me if 
she wanted me to know it. The circumstances were a little 
out of the ordinary, weren’t they? It wouldn’t have been 
altogether surprising if she had preferred to leave me in 
ignorance.” 

There was no hint of mock modesty in his manner of say¬ 
ing this. He just stated a plain fact, that was all, and John 
liked him for it. There couldn’t be much amiss with him if 
he was still able to display feelings of chivalry towards a 
woman. 

John began to think that Biddy’s estimate of him had, 
after all, been right, and it was with more confidence than 
he had expected that he ushered him into the room where 
she was. 

It pleased him, too, to observe that, though he showed a 
little natural embarrassment when Biddy held out her hand 
to him, there was no gaucherie discernible in Roger’s bear¬ 
ing as he took it in his. As far as outward signs went it 
might have been just an ordinary social gathering with 
nothing in the background to mark it as being, possibly, the 
turning point in a man’s career. 

Even the condition of his clothes didn’t appear, on the 
surface at any rate, to ruffle Roger’s composure although 
John guessed that he was conscious of it, for, when he 
invited him to sit down, he carefully chose a seat where 
he could hide the gaping hole in his boot under the table. 

Mrs. Ottoway, when she brought in the tea, gave sur¬ 
reptitious glances at the incongruous group gathered round 


106 


A CERTAIN MAN 


the empty fireplace and vainly endeavoured to reconcile 
them with one another. She was not unaccustomed to 
John introducing strange visitors into the apartment and 
giving them tea, and she could understand his entertaining 
somebody like Mrs. Rycroft, albeit this was the first occa¬ 
sion on which he had done so, but that he should combine 
the two opposite extremes into one party was utterly beyond 
her comprehension. She didn’t hold with it. 

During the meal which followed, the conversation was 
carried on in that staccato and jerky manner which betokens 
abstraction and a desire to delay, as long as possible, the 
awkward moment which everybody knows to be looming 
ahead. 

They agreed on the unusual warmth of the weather for 
May, which was so obvious that no one could have dis¬ 
agreed about it; they discussed the political situation, of 
which they were all equally ignorant; they touched, in a 
half-hearted manner, on the merits and demerits of summer¬ 
time and whether it really did affect the health of children 
which, as none of them had any, was a work of supereroga¬ 
tion; and, finally, though how they arrived there was a 
mystery, they found themselves involved in a discussion on 
the great advance made in medical science in the last few 
years which landed them in such inextricable confusion that 
they sought refuge in silence. 

It was not until they had finished tea that Biddy took the 
plunge and ventured to broach the subject which up to now 
they had all shied at. 

“ Well, we aren’t getting much forrarder, are we?” she 
observed suddenly, with startling abruptness. 

“ You mean about — ” John began flounderingly, then 
stopped. With the object of their solicitude sitting there 
under their very noses it seemed almost an impertinence 
to discuss the case and yet it had to be done, he knew, 
although it was painfully reminiscent of two doctor’s hold¬ 
ing a consultation over the bed of their patient and going 
into minute and harrowing details of his symptoms regard- 



A CERTAIN MAN 


107 


less of his feelings. It was necessary, of course. The 
patient’s pulse had to be taken, his temperature noted, 
intimate questions asked which he alone was able to answer, 
before any decision could be reached as to the measures to 
be adopted to bring relief to the sufferer. 

And what if the patient in this case refused to be treated? 

From the sudden set of Roger’s jaw at Biddy’s remark it 
struck John that this was a factor to be reckoned with. 

If Biddy had been a man, or even an elderly woman, 
instead of a young and attractive one, the position would 
have been less complicated, but, as it was, the difficulties 
to be got over were tremendous and John foresaw that a 
good deal of tact and patience would be needed to per¬ 
suade Roger to accept tangible help. 

In a way he sympathised with him. As far as he had 
been able to judge from the very little superficial knowledge 
he had of him, Roger Dibden appeared still to possess more 
than a modicum of the pride of youth for which so small 
allowance is made in this world. People are apt to forget 
how hard they found it themselves to own up that the 
trumpet they expended so much breath upon, in order that 
a suitable flourish should herald their entrance into the 
arena, has proved to be nothing but sounding brass. They 
deliberately blot out from their memories the days when 
they regarded the world as a football to be kicked hither 
and thither as it pleased them and, from a coign of van¬ 
tage, watch their successors carrying on the game and 
applaud vigorously when the tables are turned on those 
who have taken their places in the field, and the world 
retaliates. 

That he had judged rightly was plain for it was Roger 
who spoke up. 

“I — I tried to explain to Mrs. Rycroft last night how 
impossible it was that — that I could sponge on her,” he 
said stubbornly. “ I should be sorry if a — a common act 
of courtesy should be construed into a subtle appeal for — 
for help. Perhaps, no doubt I did act foolishly in not restor- 


108 


A CERTAIN MAN 


ing her pendant more promptly and I deeply regret having 
placed her in — in an invidious position, but that I should 
consider myself to have any claim upon her for restoring it 
is unthinkable. I only came here this afternoon because I 
felt I owed it to Mrs. Rycroft, after her extreme kindness to 
me last night, to accede to her request. If you’ll excuse me 
I’ll go now.” 

He got up as he finished speaking and, picking up his cap, 
turned towards the door. 

John got up, too, and laid a detaining hand on his arm. 
He guessed that it was of set purpose that the other man 
had forestalled discussion, that he had broken up the self- 
constituted committee of ways and means before it had even 
begun to sit and he admired him for his courage in so doing, 
but it couldn’t be allowed to end there. The reed was 
bruised, but not broken. The flax was smoking, but not yet 
quenched. His would be the fault if the reed got broken 
and the flax was quenched because, when he had the chance, 
he had let them go untended. 

“ Don’t be a silly ass,” he said. “ Sit down.” 

Considering John had had to speak on the spur of the 
moment, he had calculated the effect of his surprising words 
to a nicety. 

Paradoxical as it may sound, a man doesn’t address 
another man as a “ silly ass ” unless he is friendly disposed 
towards him. If John had accosted Roger as “ Mr Dibden ” 
or “ Dibden ” or, worse still, as “ my friend ” it would not 
have had half the arresting influence of that “ silly ass.” 

The “ silly ass ” allowed John to put him back into the 
chair he had just vacated without a word of protest and, 
from that moment, John felt he had the matter well in hand. 

“Did you ever hear Canning’s lines in ‘ New Morality ’ 
on a candid friend?” he asked with apparent irrelevance. 

“ No, I didn’t, at least to my knowledge,” Biddy, to whom 
the question was addressed, answered somewhat shortly. 
She was a little breathless from Roger’s unexpected be¬ 
havior. “ I suppose it means you’re going to be nasty.” 



A CERTAIN MAN 


109 


“ 4 But of all plagues, good heaven, thy wrath can send, 
Save, save, Oh, save me from a candid friend’,” 
quoted John solemnly. 

44 Then you are going to be nasty,” said Biddy. 

44 I’m going to be candid,” rejoined John. 

44 It’s the same thing. Well, what is it?” asked Biddy. 

44 I’m going to ask you to leave Mr. Dibden and myself 
to talk this matter over alone.” 

44 You’re not very polite, I must say, turning me out neck 
and crop! You evidently share the general masculine 
opinion of women. The hand that rocks the cradle upsets 
the apple-cart,” Biddy said, feigning indignation but, at 
the same time, collecting together her various feminine 
impedimenta. 

Roger sprang to his feet again in a state of great mental 
perturbation. 

44 1 won’t hear of it, Mrs. Rycroft!” he declared. 44 You 
mustn’t go on my account, please.” 

He glared at John with an indignation that was not at all 
feigned, and the latter, groaning inwardly, felt a strong 
inclination to shake Biddy for her want of tact. Possibly 
she, too, realised her mistake for she said hastily: 

44 All the same, Mr. Ffoulkes is quite right, Mr. Dibden. 
You’ll be able to talk much more comfortably if I’m not 
here. I’m not really offended so easily as all that,” she 
said, rising from her chair as she spoke and holding out 
her hand. 44 We shall meet again.” 

44 I’m afraid that’s not very likely,” Roger observed 
stiffly. He had a feeling that, against his will, he was being 
forced into the very position he had determined to steer 
clear of, that, one by one, his defences were being beaten 
down, but he wouldn’t give up without a struggle. It 
was that feeling which accounted for his lack of cordiality. 
It was impossible that he should let her go away with the 
impression that he had already capitulated. That strain of 
dogged obstinacy, which even his misfortunes had not suc¬ 
ceeded in altogether obliterating, forbade his surrender as 



110 


A CERTAIN MAN 


long as there was a shot left in his locker, and to allow her 
last remark to pass unchallenged was to acknowledge 
defeat already. 

Perhaps Biddy had some inkling of what was floating 
in his mind for she didn’t appear in the least abashed by 
the chilly reception accorded to her friendly overtures. 

“ The unlikely often happens,” she said lightly. “ Let’s 
hope it will in this case. Good-bye, and — good luck.” 

And with that she was gone leaving Roger staring at 
the door through which she had vanished and cursing, incon- 
sequently enough, that absurd pride which stood between 
him and the fulfillment of his desires. For that he did 
desire all the things which might be his, if he chose to 
accept them from the hands of a woman, he did not hide 
from himself. To deny himself this friendship was to deny 
himself the very necessities of life, food, clothing, a roof to 
cover his homeless head, and yet the one was impossible 
without the others. He laughed a little bitterly at the pic¬ 
ture he conjured up in his mind’s eye of himself, as he now 
was, marching up and ringing the front door bell of Biddy’s 
house and demanding to know of the affronted servant who 
answered it, if “ Mrs. Rycroft was at home?” He’d quickly 
be sent off with a flea in his ear! 

Meanwhile, John, who was seeing Biddy out to her wait¬ 
ing car, was endeavouring to get her to look at the matter 
from the same point of view. 

“ Did you ever know anybody so stubborn?” she had 
said, when the door was closed behind them. 

“ In a way I see his difficulties,” John replied thoughtfully. 

“ I don’t. What are they?” demanded Biddy. 

“ Trousers, mostly,” said John, with disconcerting blunt¬ 
ness. “ Any young man with an atom of self-respect is diffi¬ 
dent about accepting such things from a lady. Very foolish, 
no doubt, but there it is.” 

“ Oh!” Biddy’s face fell. 

“ I never thought of that,” she said in awe-struck tones. 
“ I just thought beyond , of finding him a job. Of course 



A CERTAIN MAX 


111 


he’ll need clothes and things. How can it be managed? Do 
think of something. John.” 

John was thinking of something. He was thinking of a 
new gray flannel suit lying folded in a drawer upstairs 
waiting for the summer holidays and he gave a tiny sigh of 
regret as he realised that it must be cast off (before it was 
ever on in the interests of Mr. Roger DIbden. 

u Ih manage something .* 7 he said valiantly. 

“ There'll be food and lodging as well / 7 almost wailed 
Biddy. “ Do you think that, without impropriety. I might 
offer to defrav the cost of those items until something turns 
up?” 

John pondered for a few moments. 

“ I wouldn't. Biddy .' 7 he said at length. “ Dornt spoil 
the ship for a hap’orth of tar. Our young friend’s a little 
inclined to be on his hind legs already. We’ve got to go 
carefully with him, else well frighten him away. Now, 
look here. There’s a small room in this house next to 
mine. How would it be if I could persuade him to come 
here as my guest until we can see where we are? He may 
rlimh down Grom his pedestal later on!” 

“ Of course that would be ideal / 7 said Biddy, then added 
doubtfully. “ but it seems so unfair.” 

" What does ?’ 7 asked John. 

“ To land you with all the trouble and — and expense / 7 

she replied. 

"The only trouble may be with my landlady / 7 John 
assured her. ** But I think I can manage her all right. As 
for the expense. I’ll arrange for him to be my P. G. and he 
can pay me back when that job comes along. It’s not that 
I grudge the money. Biddy, but I think he's more likely to 
fall in with that plan than any other .' 7 

u John. youTe an angel . 77 Biddy said. But I mustn’t 
keep yon talking out here any longer or he may suspect 
we're plotting. Write and let me know how things pan 
out. or. better still, come and see me .’ 7 

They were outside on the pavement by this time, where 







112 


A CERTAIN MAN 


the distracted Rands was busily employed in guarding his 
precious car frqm the grubby, inquisitive fingers of a crowd 
of children who seemed bent on leaving their imprints 
on the varnished paint. He welcomed his mistress with 
obvious relief, and hardly waited for her to be settled before 
he started the engine and was off. 

“ And bring Mr. Dibden with you,” Biddy called out as 
she was hurried away from the scene. 

It must be confessed that John, when he returned to his 
remaining guest, felt unaccountably shy. He was accustomed 
to dealing with all sorts and conditions of men but never, in 
all his experience, had he been confronted with quite such a 
complex case as this promised to be and, because he didn’t 
altogether know how to tackle it, an unwonted nervousness 
took possession of him. 

“ Have a cigarette?” he said, falling back upon the cus¬ 
tomary masculine expedient for breaking the ice. 

“ Thanks.” 

Roger took a cigarette from the case John held out, and 
eyed it curiously. 

“ I’ve often envied the chaps who could bring themselves 
to pick up cigarette ends out of the gutter,” he said, medi¬ 
tatively. There was no desire to impress his listener by this 
remark which might so easily have been made to sound 
theatrical and unreal. He simply stated a fact. 

“ Has it been as bad as that? Poor old chap!” John said, 
and, at the unmistakable sympathy in his voice, Roger 
moved uncomfortably in his chair. Good heavens! Did 
this parson bloke imagine he was courting sympathy? At 
the same time, with the inconsistency of poor weak human¬ 
ity, he couldn’t help feeling it was rather comforting to 
have someone commiserating with one, and, though he 
poured the cold waters of common sense on the tiny spark 
of gratitude which John’s words had kindled in his starved 
heart, and told himself that they were part of the clerical 
stock-in-trade, the glow still lingered on and refused to be 
extinguished. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


113 


He lit his cigarette with a hand that, in spite of all his 
efforts to the contrary, would persist in trembling a little. 

“ You were in France, weren’t you?” John asked, more to 
gain time than anything else, since Biddy had already told 
him so. 

Roger nodded. 

“ What regiment?” 

Roger told him. 

“ I met some of the fellows out of the second battalion 
when I was in hospital,” John said. “ Let me see. There 
was Goodchild and Holtum and little Teddy Hawes, and a 
chap with red hair that the others called The Cherub. I J ve 

forgotten his name.” 

“ D’you mean Simpson?” enquired Roger. 

“ That was it,” John said. “ Goodchild died in hospital. 
What happened to the others?” 

“ Holtum and Teddy Hawes were killed at La Vacquerie 
in December, 1917. Simpson, I believe, is fa rmin g some¬ 
where in Kenya Colony, but I’m not sure,” Roger told him . 
He gave no sign of being aware that John was pumping him 
even if he suspected it. 

“ By Jove! It’s a blessing that’s a thing of the past,” 
John exclaimed. 

“ Is it? Yes, I suppose it is,” Roger answered sardoni¬ 
cally. “ All the same, it had it’s compensations.” 

“You mean one was — free?” John asked doubtfully, 
comparing the open life of those days with the cramped 
existence of today spent among the squalid courts and 
alleys of a great city. 

“ I don’t. I mean just the opposite,” Roger said shortly. 
“ One was a slave but one had a master to look after one. 
One was a dog, but one had a kennel to sleep in and clean 
straw to lie upon, and food to eat. Now — ” He stopped 
and shrugged his shoulders expressively. In his vehement 
outburst he forgot that with every word he was giving him¬ 
self away and exposing his wounded soul to the public gaze. 

John saw his opportunity and was not slow to take 



114 


A CERTAIN MAN 


advantage of it. He laid his hand gently on the other 
man’s arm. 

“ It’s up to you,” was all he said. 

“ To drag myself back to respectability by hanging on 
to the skirts of a woman, you mean,” he said roughly. 
“ Thanks. I’m not taking any.” 

He attempted to pull his arm away but John tightened 
his grasp on it so that, short of by violence, he could not 
get loose. 

“ My dear chap,” John said deliberately. “ Don’t we all 
hang on to the skirts of some woman or another from the 
day we first set foot to the ground? Thank God if we 
happen on one who will drag us to respectability for there 
are plenty who will do the opposite if we give them half 
a chance. It’s a popular fallacy that woman is dependent 
on man while man is independent of woman. Why? The 
very first woman who was created was intended as a help¬ 
meet for man. That was her raison d’etre, and if the 
Almighty thought man needed a woman’s help I expect 
there’s something in the idea.” 

In spite of himself Roger grinned. 

“ That’s all very well,” he said, “ but perhaps you’ll 
kindly remember that in those days there were no sartorial 
complications. You may be right about all of us hanging 
on to a woman’s skirts, but if the skirt is the latest fash¬ 
ionable cut one needs to be dressed to match in a tail coat 
and the right kind of bags and to wear a topper on one’s 
head and shove one’s hands into lavender kid gloves, before 
one dares lay hold.” 

“ And one has a natural diffidence about allowing the 
lady in the fashionable skirt to supply them,” John observed 
dryly. 

“ Well, wouldn’t you have?” Roger demanded with a 
show of indignation. 

“ Perhaps I should,” John replied, after due considera¬ 
tion, “ but I wouldn’t throw up the whole bag of tricks for 
the sake of a pair of trousers.” 



A CERTAIN MAN 


115 


“What would you do then?” 

“ Fd borrow them from a friend.” 

“ But if you hadn’t got one?” 

“ I’d make one.” 

“You can’t pick friends off the hedge as though they 
were blackberries.” 

“ All the more reason to accept one when it’s offered.” 

“ What do you mean?” 

“I mean what’s the matter with me?” 

Something very like a sob rose up in Roger’s throat and 
he turned away his head so that John should not see his 
face. 

“ But you don’t know anything about me,” he said, 
bringing out the words with an effort, for he suddenly 
longed beyond everything to have John for his friend, to 
have the right to claim his sympathy, to feel that there 
was one who would lend a willing ear if he unburdened 
himself of the load of doubts and fears which weighed him 
down, only it seemed so unfair, so like taking advantage 
of an offer which perhaps would be regretted when it was 
too late to draw back. 

“ How d’you know I’m not a fraud?” he asked, still hesi¬ 
tating. 

For answer, John pulled him round so that they were 
standing, face to face. 

“ Look me in the eyes,” he said, putting his two hands 
on Roger’s shoulders. 

For the space of ten seconds the two men stood there 
like that, staring straight into one another’s eyes, then 
John dropped his hands with a little laugh. 

“ I’ll risk it,” he said. “ Come. Is it a deal?” 

Roger laid an arm along the edge of the mantelpiece and 
buried his face in the crook of it. 

“ I’m beat,” he said, in muffled tones. “ Have it your 
own way.” 



CHAPTER VIII 


There is no doubt that John, in taking Roger’s trust¬ 
worthiness for granted, without waiting to make a closer 
investigation or verify the truth of his statements, was 
behaving, as the world at large would have stigmatised it, 
very foolishly, but his experience of life, as lived in the over¬ 
crowded slums of the East End, where he came into contact 
with all sorts and conditions of men and rubbed shoulders 
with the riff-raff of a thickly populated parish, had taught 
him to read his fellow creatures like an open book and, 
though he did not pretend to be infallible and occasionally 
was mistaken in his estimate of a character, he was more 
often right than not. 

Those few seconds during which he had looked into 
Roger’s eyes had convinced him that he need have no fear 
of being let down by him, no man who had evil designs 
could have returned that penetrating gaze as Roger had 
done without flinching. No jail-bird could have stood 
there and submitted to have his soul searched as this ragged, 
out-at-elbow waif had, without betraying himself. John 
was satisfied on that score. The trouble would be to force 
other people to share his satisfaction. 

He had no intention, because he himself had faith, of 
taking no further steps to bolster up Roger’s story. It was 
as necessary for Roger’s sake, as for his own and Biddy’s, 
to obtain confirmation of it from an independent source. 
There must be no blank pages in his history if he were to 
have a fair start. 

But before that could be done there was Mrs. Ottoway 
to be interviewed. John knew her kind, motherly heart 
and he had little doubt that, if only he could smuggle Roger 
into it, ample room would be found there for another 
“ poor lamb,” but the situation required careful handling. 
It was asking a good deal of anybody, as house-proud as 
116 


A CERTAIN MAN 


117 


she was, to expect them to shelter a tattered and torn indi¬ 
vidual who could show no credentials and whom John 
himself had only taken on trust. 

However it had to be gone through and, since it was 
obviously impossible to discuss the problem in front of the 
person implicated, he left Roger in possession of the sitting 
room and sought Mrs. Ottoway in her own domain. 

She was busily engaged in stirring something in a sauce¬ 
pan over the fire, a relish, no doubt, for Mr. Ottoway’s tea, 
and she looked up in some surprise, as John came in, at this 
invasion of her premises, so surprised in fact that she had to 
reach for her spectacle case from the shelf and adjust her 
spectacles on her nose to make sure her vision was not 
playing tricks with her. 

“ You ain’t ill, are you?” she asked anxiously, unable to 
assign any other reason for her lodger’s presence in her 
kitchen. 

“ No, I’m not ill,” John assured her. “ But I’m in a bit 
of a fix. May I sit down?” 

He advanced into the room as he spoke and, without 
waiting for permission, pulled a chair away from the table 
and, sitting astride it, folded his arms on the back. 

Mrs. Ottoway nodded her head sagely. She flattered 
herself she knew what was coming without needing to be 
told. 

“ Why you ’ad ’im into the sitting room I don’t know,” 
she said. “ I’m sure I did my best to stop it and I should 
’ave stopped it, if you ’adn’t poked your nose out at the 
wrong moment. Naturally a lady don’t like to sit at table 
with a tramp, and what you were about to bring things to 
such a pass is more than I can tell you. Of course you’re 
in a bit of a fix and I don’t want my specs to see ’oo’s fixed 
you neither. Went off in a ’uff, did she?” 

“ Nothing of the kind, Xantippe, my love,” declared John 
beaming at her. “ As a matter of fact the lady knew the 
— er — tramp before I did, and he’s not exactly a tramp 
either.” 



118 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“ And my name ain’t exactly San Tippy either. It’s plain 
Sylvia, if you want to know,” announced Mrs. Ottoway, 
brandishing the spoon at him. “ My love, indeed! Did 
you ever hear the like for cheek?” 

All the same the “ cheek,” as she termed it, put Mrs. 
Ottoway in high good humour as John had intended it 
should. He knew her weakness for being chaffed and had 
traded on it to further his own ends. Once get her into a 
rollicking mood and she was as plastic as wet clay. 

“ He’s a gentleman,” went on John imperturbably. 

Mrs. Ottoway gave vent to a sound half-way between a 
laugh and a crow. 

“ With them boots all in gapes and a patch on the seat 
of ’is trousers!” she exclaimed, unconvinced. “I don’t go 
about with my eyes shut. I took ’em in.” 

“ It’s not the clothes that make the gentleman,” observed 
John sententiously. 

“ Per’aps not, but it’s the want of ’em makes the tramp,” 
responded Mrs. Ottoway with vigour. 

“ If your theory is correct, I’m a tramp every morning 
for ten minutes or so when I’m in my bath,” John pointed 
out with some show of logic. “ I hope you don’t, on 
that account, object to my presence under your roof?” he 
added. 

“ Now, Mr. Ffoulkes, I’m too busy to listen to any more 
of your nonsense. If you can’t talk sense, out of my kitchen 
you go,” said Mrs. Ottoway with determination. 

“ But you won’t listen to sense when I talk it,” objected 
John. “ I was beginning to tell you about the fix I’m in 
only you interrupted.” 

“ Well, talk away then, only you must let me get on 
with my work while you do. Ottoway’ll be in ’ungry for 
’is tea at any minute and if it ain’t ready ’e’ll set to and 
rampage,” said Mrs. Ottoway. “ What’s this fix I’ve ’eard 
so much about?” 

“ Well, it isn’t altogether my fix. It’s partly Mr. 
Dibden’s,” John began warily. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


119 


“ Tm with the ’oley boots ?” enquired Mrs. Ottoway. 

“And the patch in the — er —seat of his trousers,” 
John reminded her. “You wouldn’t like to see Ottoway 
going out with a patch in the seat of his trousers, would 
you?” 

“ ’E’d come in a deal quicker than ’e went out if I did 
see ’im in that state. Not that ’e could though,” she 
reflected. “ ’E ’asn’t got any such a pair.” 

“ And that’s because he’s got you to look after him. 
Lucky fellow!” said John. 

“ Well, so ’ave you, if it comes to that,” observed the 
lucky fellow’s wife with a smile of gratification at the 
compliment. 

“ But Mr. Dibden hasn’t,” John remarked meditatively. 

Mrs. Ottoway stopped her occupation and, ignoring the 
risk of the homeward bound Ottoway returning to find his 
tea not ready and, consequently rampaging, came and stood 
over John with arms akimbo. 

“Now what are you getting at, Mr. Ffoulkes?” she 
demanded to know. 

“ Getting at?” asked John, in innocent tones. 

“ Yes. Getting at,” she repeated firmly. “ There’s some¬ 
thing behind all this palaver about Ottoway’s trousers and 
what-not. What is it?” 

“ I’ve told you. It’s this fix I’m in about Mr. Dibden,” 
said John. “ You see, he was an officer in the war — ” he 
paused impressively, and Mrs. Ottoway pricked up her 
ears at the word “ officer,” which was precisely the effect 
John intended it to have. He was perfectly aware that 
now she would never rest until she had gleaned every 
detail of Roger’s decline and fall from that high estate to 
his present ignoble one. 

“ An officer!” Mrs. Ottoway echoed the word with gusto. 
“ But ’ow ever — ” 

“ I’ll tell you all about it if you really want to hear,” John 
interrupted, skillfully transposing their respective attitudes 
and putting her in the position of being the one eager to 


120 


A CERTAIN MAN 


learn the story instead of he being the one anxious to 
impart it. 

Evidently Mr. Ottoway might rampage, and he would, 
but he would have to wait for his tea until such time as 
his wife might choose to give it to him, for she set the 
saucepan on the side of the range, untied and removed her 
apron, then, drawing up a chair opposite to John’s, sat 
herself down and prepared to listen. 

So once again, with certain notable omissions (Mrs. 
Ottoway would never have stomached last night’s episode 
even where it concerned a tramp who had once been an 
officer), Roger’s history was related, broken by sundry 
ejaculations from the listener, and, when John ended, she 
sat staring at him almost as though she were in an hypnotic 
trance and waited till he should awaken her out of it. 
When, at last, after a deep sigh, she did speak, John sighed, 
too, with relief, for he knew the victory was as good as won. 

“ Poor lamb,” said Mrs. Ottoway, wiping the tears from 
her eyes. 

John was more touched than he cared to own by her 
ready acceptance of the story without reservation. Not for 
a single instant did she appear to have any doubts about 
Roger’s good faith. Once safe in the inner fortress of Mrs. 
Ottoway’s warm heart, she defended the one who had gained 
admittance there, as savagely as a lioness defends her cubs. 

There only remained now to broach the subject of that 
empty room upstairs next to John’s, and he approached it 
with due caution and a craftiness which the most finished 
diplomat might have envied. 

“ And now you see what a fix we are in, Mrs. Ottoway,” 
he said guilelessly. “ Of course I’m ready to guarantee the 
money for his lodgings, but where can I find any? I can’t 
send him to a common lodging house” (“God forbid!” 
interposed Mrs. Ottoway fervently) “and nobody else would 
take him in as he is at present.” 

Mrs. Ottoway fell into the trap even more easily than he 
had dared hope. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


121 


“ Wouldn’t they? Then that’s where you make a mis¬ 
take, Mr. Ffoulkes. I would, for one,” she declared with 
emphasis. “ There’s that little room next the one you’re in. 
It’s small but it’s clean, and it only wants the bed making 
up to be ready, and the poor gentleman’s welcome to it, 
I’m sure, after what ’e’s been through, and nothing to pay 
neither, and ’e an officer, too. Well, well, well! I wouldn’t 
’ave believed it if I ’adn’t ’eard it with my own ears. A 
land fit for ’eroes to live in, indeed! ’T any rate I’ll show 
’im there’s a room fit for one to sleep in.” She paused for 
necessary breath and John seized the opportunity to get in 
a word. 

“ Mrs. Ottoway,” he said, “ you’re — you’re — I can’t 
tell you what you are.” 

“ Then don’t ’urt yourself trying, my dear,” said Mrs. 
Ottoway. “ And ’im used to ’is soldier servant and all,” the 
good soul was off again in full cry before John could stop 
her. “ Well Ottoway didn’t do much in the war except 
say ’ow badly it was going for us whenever we ’ad a bit of 
a set back, and sit groaning in the cupboard under the 
stairs every time them nasty zephyrlines went off, so ’e can 
do ’is bit now and see after ’im same as ’e does after you. 
And that saucy fellow at that office who dared to abuse ’is 
pore dead father! I wish I ’ad ’im ’ere now. I’d knock 
the stuffing out of ’im, that I would, yes, and the sauce, 
too. I’ll be bound the only twinge of conscience ’e ever felt 
was when war broke out and ’is King and Country needed 
’im (or thought they did, not knowing anything about ’im 
in ’is true colours). ’Orrid little reptile!” 

There was no doubt that once Mrs. Ottoway took up 
cudgels of defence she wielded them to some purpose. There 
was no half-heartedness about the matter. She hit right 
and left without regard to whom she might lay out in the 
process and John recognised with gratitude that she was 
prepared to meet all comers on Roger’s behalf and to pit 
herself against any who might dare to question his pre¬ 
scriptive right to preferential treatment. 



122 


A CERTAIN MAN 


So relieved was he at the ease with which he had forced 
Mrs. Ottoway’s hand that he sprang up from his chair and 
going over to her he put his arm round her waist, as far 
as it would go (she had risen from her seat at the same 
moment) and gave her a great squeeze. “ You are a 
brick,” he said. 

“ You needn’t try to ’eave me if I am,” she remarked, 
rocking unsteadily under the sudden and unexpected on¬ 
slaught. “ Let go, Mr. Ffoulkes, you’ll ’ave me over.” 

John let go because, not having been able to secure a firm 
grip, he couldn’t hold on any longer. 

“ I must go and tell Mr. Dibden,” he said excitedly. 

“ Well, don’t make too much of a song about it, there’s 
a dear,” Mrs. Ottoway begged. “ We don’t want to ’ave 
the poor boy feeling be’olden to us more than we can ’elp. 
It’s a tonic ’e needs, not a black draught.” 

“ The song’s made already,” John said. 

“Oh! And ’oo made it then?” enquired Mrs. Ottoway, 
humouringly. 

“ One William Shakespeare,” John told her, “ Listen. 
This is how it goes: 

“ ‘ Who is Sylvia? What is she? That all our swains 
commend her?’ 

“ Isn’t it ripping to have a song like that written about 
one?” 

“ Well, it sounds rubbish to me,” Mrs. Ottoway candidly 
confessed. “ And any’ow, it ain’t likely ’e’d ’eard of me 
when ’e wrote it,” she concluded with becoming modesty. 

“ No. It’s not very likely,” agreed John gravely. “ But 
perhaps, you know, you were called after the person it was 
written about.” 

“No, I wasn’t,” said Mrs. Ottoway decidedly. “I was 
called after the ’ouse my mother lived in when she was 
a gal. Sylvia Cottage, ’Ammersmith, was the name of 
it.” 

When John went back into the sitting room Roger was 
still standing where he had left him by the fireplace, idly 



A CERTAIN MAN 


123 


fingering the ornaments which adorned the mantelpiece. 
He turned round as John entered. 

“ It’s all right,” said the latter, cheerfully. “ I’ve fixed 
you up. There’s a little room next mine that you can 
have. It’s not much bigger than a glorified cupboard, I’m 
afraid, but it’s quite decent.” His apology for the size of 
the room was made with due deliberation. He was anxious 
to avoid any appearance of assuming that Roger ought to 
be grateful for the smallest mercy vouchsafed to him and 
to let him see that he was regarded as just an ordinary guest 
and not a mere object of grudging charity, on a level with 
a lost dog or a starving kitten, whom it was an act of grace 
to shelter. 

Roger stared, hearing what John said, but not taking 
in the full meaning of his words. 

For so long now he had been the sport of Fate; for so 
many weary months he had been thankful if the meagre 
earnings of the day warranted the luxury of a bed in a 
crowded doss-house or, if they did not, to content himself 
with a place on one of the seats on the Embankment, and 
too often, when cold or hunger or the two combined pre¬ 
vented sleep, had he dragged his tired, aching limbs through 
the slumbering streets, deserted by all save policemen and 
lovelorn cats and an occasional outcast like himself, home¬ 
less and desolate, who shuffled past without a word or look, 
a flitting shadow in the city of shadows. He had learned to 
recognise these gray, silent ghosts as heralds of the majesty 
of the law, for many times, before their stumbling footsteps 
were even out of earshot, he had heard the heavy tramp of 
the constable on his beat following in their wake and, like 
them, he had accustomed himself to slink off in the opposite 
direction when he caught this sound approaching, sooner 
than submit to have the searching rays of a dark-lantern 
turned upon him in suspicious enquiry of his motives in 
being abroad when all good citizens should be abed and 
asleep. Therefore, when John announced in those positive 
tones that not only a bed, but a bed in a room which he 


124 


A CERTAIN MAN 


would have to himself, where he would not have to lie 
awake and listen to the snores and stifled groans and curses 
of other unfortunates, a room where he would have privacy 
and where it would be possible to shut himself in alone with 
his thoughts was waiting for him, it took him a little while 
to realise that his ears had not deceived him and that he 
was really being offered these inestimable boons. He had 
pictured in his imagination, being handed the price of a 
night’s lodging and told to go away and come back in the 
morning, and the picture had been so insufferable that he 
had had much ado not to take advantage of John’s absence 
to bolt, and it was only the recollection of those few seconds 
during which he had stood with John’s hands resting on 
his shoulders and with John’s eyes searching his and the 
sound of his voice as he said, “ I’ll risk it. Is it a deal?” 
that had kept him from stealing quietly out of the house 
and losing himself once more in the labyrinth of London. 
Yet even now, when he had only to stretch out and grasp 
the line thrown out to draw him to safety, the demon of 
false pride ever on the lookout to stultify the fulfillment of 
his dreams, held him back, whispering maliciously in his 
ear that now was the time to assert his independence if 
he didn’t wish to lose it for good and all; that, if he 
allowed himself to be pulled out of the quagmire into which 
he had fallen, it would be to find himself bound to the 
chariot wheels of his rescuer to adorn his triumph and that 
it was better to die a free man than live in shackles. 

“ God!” he exclaimed, in accents of despair. “ I’ve sunk 
pretty low, haven’t I? Last night I cadged off Mrs. Rycroft 
and tonight I cadge off you, and tomorrow and the day 
after, I suppose, I shall cadge off any Tom, Dick and Harry 
I can find to listen to my whining. ‘ Kind gentleman, 
spare a poor man a copper to get a night’s lodging.’ Once 
having tasted the sweets of charity I shall become a glutton 
for them, I shall be stripped of my last rag of self-respect. 
You must let me off our deal. It wasn’t part of our bargain 
that you should provide me with board and lodging. You 



A CERTAIN MAN 


125 


must let me off.” He dropped heavily into a chair as he 
finished speaking, worn out by the violence of his emotions, 
and hid his face in his shaking hands. 

It was easy to see that his physical, rather than his mental 
condition, was responsible for this wild outburst. From 
sheer bodily exhaustion he had worked himself up into 
such a state of morbid imagination that he had lost all 
sense of proportion and all self-control. 

John had come across other similar cases before this 
where men, released from some great strain, but with their 
minds still numb from the effects of it, had found a diffi¬ 
culty in realising that they were no longer pinned down by 
Fate but were free to rise again and be men. It is on a par 
with that blind unreasoning terror which incites a dog whose 
leg is caught in the teeth of a trap, to snap at the hand 
which is setting it at liberty. 

He understood the promptings of the mood, but he also 
recognised the necessity of checking it at the outset, before 
it had time to get a stranglehold on its creature. 

Going across to Roger, whose breath was coming in quick 
pants that were almost sobs, he took hold of him by the 
shoulders and shook him roughly. 

“ Stop it,” he said authoritatively, seeing that the younger 
man had arrived at the pitch when nothing but stern meas¬ 
ures would bring him back to his senses. “ You’re making 
a bally fool of yourself.” The very harshness of the terse 
sentence acted like a douche of cold water on Roger, as John 
had intended it should. Gradually the heavy breathing 
became normal, the spasms of trembling, which rippled over 
his body like an ague, died away, and his hands dropped 
from his face to his lap. 

John pulled up a chair and sat down opposite to him, so 
close that their knees almost touched. 

“ Now, look here, old chap,” he said impressively. 
“ This won’t do. You’ve got to pull yourself together. I 
know you’ve had a rotten time but you’ve still got grit 
enough to fight for things worth while. It’s not a bit of use 



126 


A CERTAIN MAN 


to beat the air, which is what you’re doing. No. You’ve 
got to listen to me. It’s my turn now.” As Roger would 
have protested. “ You’ve got to put that cursed pride of 
yours in your pocket and keep it there till it’s wanted. 
You appear to regard the most footling scrap of help given 
you as the pawn ticket of your self-respect. What would 
you think of the man who, when he had a chance to escape 
from a burning house by tying the blankets together, and 
making a rope of them to swarm down by, refused on the 
plea that the blankets weren’t his own? You’d think him 
the worst kind of fool, wouldn’t you? And yet that’s 
exactly the line of conduct you’re adopting! Why, man 
alive, you’re not preserving your self-respect. You’re simply 
chucking it away. You accepted me as your friend just 

now. You’ve not taken long to find out that my friend¬ 

ship’s not worth having, have you? Perhaps it hasn’t 
occurred to you that I have my pride, too, and that you 
lower it when you think so little of my offer that, at the first 
opportunity, you throw it on the dust-heap without com¬ 
punction. You’ve the power to call our deal off if you 
wish it. I can’t keep you here against your will but, for 
God’s sake, don’t decide in a hurry. Take time — all the 
time you want— to think it over. Go right back to the 
beginning and start from there, leaving out that —that 
damnable rot you talked about cadging, and then, when 

you’ve thought, if you still feel you want to go I won’t 

say another word, but, if you make up your mind to stay, 
well, once again — what’s the matter with me?” He gave 
Roger a friendly little pat on the side of the knee as he 
finished speaking and getting up strolled across to the win¬ 
dow where he stood, looking out into the street, waiting. 
He felt he had been rather brutal to speak as he had done. 
It seemed so like hitting a man when he was down. All 
the same he didn’t regret it. Mrs. Ottoway had said it 
was a tonic Roger needed, not a black draught, and he’d 
carried out her prescription faithfully. Whether the dose 
would have the hoped-for results remained to be seen. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


127 


Through the open window the ordinary everyday 
sounds of the outside world fell upon John’s ears as he stood 
there; the shouts of the children at play; the voices of 
the group of women gossiping in a doorway opposite; the 
raucous laughter of a couple of girls who passed by enjoying 
some private joke of their own which found its vent in shrill, 
hysterical screams rivalling the screech of a peacock before 
rain; the distant bellow of a costermonger crying his wares; 
the clanging bells of the trams in the East India Dock Road 
beyond. All these customary noises reached him, but he 
was not conscious of them. He heard nothing but the 
deathly silence in the room behind. 

Roger, for the first minute or two after John had done 
speaking, sat there staring with unseeing eyes at the 
carpet. The attack had been so sudden and unexpected 
that it had, morally, winded him for the time being. He 
felt like a prize fighter who has had a knockout blow and 
lies prone, trying to recover himself sufficiently to get on 
his feet again before he is counted out. Then his brain 
began to reassert itself, but he was not thinking of John or 
of John’s words but, in the unaccountable way in which 
past sights and sounds, hitherto forgotten, rise unbidden to 
the mind, he was back in the little church at Harwood. It 
was Evensong and his father was reading the lesson. He 
saw again the white head aureoled against the light of the 
candles on the altar, and heard his voice, clear and ringing. 

“ Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a 
curse.” 

Why that one verse, more than another, should have 
detached itself and become engraved on the tables of his 
memory, he couldn’t explain but there it was and so vivid 
was the scene, so distinctly did he hear the words uttered 
in the familiar accents, that it seemed impossible to realise 
that he was only there in spirit and that his body was 
“ years and a hundred leagues away ” from the setting of 
the picture. 



128 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“ Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a 
curse.” 

Was it a message from the grave? Was it something more 
than a mere memory? Was it, indeed, a vision splendid? 
Could it really be that the living, by their actions, were able 
to disturb the peace of the dead? 

“ A blessing and a curse! ” There they were set before him 
to choose between. The blessing of renewed hope, of friend¬ 
ship, of safety. The curse of despair, of loneliness, of 
abandonment. All he had to do to secure the blessing was 
to “ put his cursed pride in his pocket and keep it there till 
it was wanted,” as John had expressed it. Then if that were 
so, his pride was the curse. He had known it all the time, 
in his heart of hearts, only he had refused to acknowledge 
it. He had willfully blinded his eyes to the truth and it 
had taken a voice from heaven to reveal it. 

“I’ll stay,” he said, brokenly. 

John swung round from the window. 

“ Now you’re talking,” he said. “ Come along up and 
let’s get that pair of trousers.” 



CHAPTER IX 


The Thursday of the following week was Ascension Day 
so John took the Wednesday as his holiday and employed 
it, without letting Roger into his confidence, in going down 
to Harwood. 

He had gathered by desultory questioning, that there was 
no squire in the village and that the principal house was 
a farm owned by a man called Jolland who had, in the late 
vicar’s time, been church-warden. 

There had been a certain intimacy apparently between 
the Vicarage and The Hill Plat and it had been Jolland’s 
son Dick who had given Roger his first lessons in shooting 
and riding, who had shown him how to throw a fly and who 
had taught him to swim by the simple expedient of picking 
him up and chucking him bodily into the water, jumping 
in himself after his protesting pupil in order to act as life¬ 
buoy. 

Dick Jolland had been fifteen years older than Roger and 
had died of dysentery in Salonica in 1918. 

It had been on the tip of John’s tongue to ask why 
Roger had not sought their aid when things were going 
badly, but he remembered the circumstances connected with 
Mr. Dibden’s death, and when Roger volunteered the state¬ 
ment that the Jollands were among his father’s creditors he 
was glad he had refrained. 

In the six days that Roger had been at Eddis Street there 
had been an astounding change not only in his appearance, 
but also in his personality. With the improvement in his 
physical condition due to a sufficiency of food, sound 
sleep at nights and cheerful companionship in the daytime 
he had taken on a saner outlook towards life in general. 
He no longer weighed the common courtesies in the balance 
and found them wanting against that insensate pride of his 
129 


130 


A CERTAIN MAN 


in the opposite scale, but received them gracefully in the 
spirit in which they were offered. He learned to view the 
future, if not with optimism, at least with calmness. He even, 
at the end of two or three days, laughed spontaneously and 
not merely because he saw it was expected of him, and when 
a man gives rein to his sense of humour, after having taken a 
toss, it means that his nerves haven’t suffered at any rate. 

Mrs. Ottoway had gathered him under her expansive wing 
and clucked over him like an old hen after a chicken. She 
waylaid him with glasses of milk and cups of Bovril at all 
sorts of inconvenient hours, as though to make up for his 
short commons in the past, and chivvied the unfortunate 
Ottoway out of his warm, comfortable bed ten minutes 
before the usual time every morning in order that he might 
do his neglected “ bit ” and act the part of soldier servant. 
Mr. Ottoway had displayed the utmost surprise (perhaps, 
in this case, not altogether unfounded) on hearing of the 
new inmate of his house, and it was just as well that 
Roger was clad in John’s gray flannel suit before they met 
for otherwise he would never have been brought to believe 
that his wife’s latest “ poor lamb ” had ever held a com¬ 
mission, even a temporary one, in His Majesty’s forces. 

Harwood, John discovered, was three miles from the 
nearest station, Tallis, which was about an hour by train 
from Charing Cross. It was a perfect spring day and he 
set out to walk the intervening distance with the anticipa¬ 
tory enjoyment which only a countryman, who has been 
boxed up in town for months, can know. 

Every leaf on every tree, every stolid cow chewing the 
cud in the lush meadows, every bird flying out of the haw¬ 
thorn-laden hedges which bordered the lanes through which 
he passed, was a dear familiar object reminding him of his 
far-off home. It only wanted the roar of the sea to make 
his cup of contentment brim over. Up hill and down dale, 
through wooded copses and over open field paths he wended 
his way, whistling snatches of half-forgotten .songs (slightly 
out of tune), and stopping now and again to bury his nose 


A CERTAIN MAN 


131 


in a spray of honeysuckle or watch the bumblebees lumber¬ 
ing in and out of the flowers growing on the banks. 

It was noon before, looking down from a rise in the 
ground, he saw The Hill Plat on the other side of a dip 
which sloped steeply to a brook gurgling over its stoney 
bed between gray-green willows. He knew it was The Hill 
Plat because a yokel, of whom he asked his way, jerked 
an earthy thumb in the direction of the low white house and 
said something quite unintelligible from which he disen¬ 
tangled the one word “ yonder.” 

So he clambered down the slope, jumped the stream, and, 
mounting the hill on the further side, presently found 
himself in a trellised porch which screened an open door¬ 
way leading straight into a square paved kitchen where 
rows of copper pots and pans twinkled merrily in the 
bright rays of the noonday sun which poured in through 
a large window at the side of the huge open fireplace, which 
filled half the end wall of the “ house-place.” 

A pleasant looking, apple-cheeked woman, with plentiful 
black hair, showing signs of gray, was bustling about busy 
with the preparations for the midday meal, and she came 
to the door directly she heard John’s step outside. 

“ Did you want to see the master?” she enquired, look¬ 
ing at the visitor with frank curiosity. She wondered where 
this stranger parson had sprung from and why he had 
appeared at this hour. She knew he did not belong to any 
of the neighbouring parishes for she was well acquainted 
with all the clergy for miles around. 

John, for his part, wondered whether she were Mrs. Jol- 
land. There was something so refreshingly homely about 
her, so unlike the modern up-to-date farmer’s wife who 
hovers uncertainly on the border-line of “ the County ” and 
does her shopping by post in case she may be suspected of 
going in to market, that he hardly dared hope he had struck 
one who was not above doing her own cooking and who 
breathed a pleasantly rural atmosphere which seemed redo¬ 
lent of all the nice clean scents of a farm, the new-mown 



132 


A CERTAIN MAN 


hay, the warm cows stalled in the byre, the apple store 
with its shelves of red and yellow and green fruit, the fresh- 
turned sods of earth after a shower. 

“ Are you Mrs. Jolland?” he enquired. 

“ Yes, Sir,” she replied. “ Will you please to walk in 
and take a seat?” 

John could have cried aloud with pleasure at the sim¬ 
plicity of the invitation, given with straightforward direct¬ 
ness and without a trace of false shame. There was no 
apology for her occupation or her dress. Both were so 
natural to her that it never crossed her mind that they 
might possibly appear to be beneath her dignity in the 
minds of other people. For forty years, ever since her 
marriage, she had cooked the dinner for “ the master ” and 
his men, and it was as much a part of the daily routine as 
cleaning her teeth or saying her prayers when she got up 
in the morning or went to bed at night. 

“ I’m interrupting you, I’m afraid,” John said hesi¬ 
tatingly. 

“ Well, Sir, I am a bit busy, to tell you the truth,” she 
admitted. “ We have our dinner at half-past twelve. I 
suppose,” she paused uncertainly, then went on, “ I sup¬ 
pose you wouldn’t care to sit down and have a bit with 
us? That’s to say if you’re not bound for anywhere else.” 

“ I say! That’s most awfully kind of you,” John said. 
“ If you’re quite sure I shan’t be putting you out?” 

“ Why, Sir, one extra doesn’t make a mite o’ difference,” 
she said heartily. “ The master’ll enjoy your company. 
He likes meeting strangers, and we don’t get many round 
these parts. We’re off the beaten track.” 

Her hospitable invitation had quite a Colonial smack 
about it. It is not often in England that an utter stranger 
is welcomed to the family board, and to John, who had 
looked forward to nothing better than a lunch of bread and 
cheese in a musty inn parlour, it sounded almost feudal. 

“ There’s a seat in the garden, Sir,” Mrs. Jolland said. 
“ You’d like to sit there, I daresay.” 



A CERTAIN MAN 


133 


Had she been a duchess she could not have dismissed 
him from the sphere of her activities with greater tact of 
delicacy, and John appreciating the fact that he would be 
in her way in the kitchen took the hint and departed garden- 
wards to enjoy a pipe and his own thoughts for half an 
hour. 

He felt considerably relieved after seeing Mrs. Jolland 
for she gave him confidence. She did not strike him as 
being the kind of woman who would allow private prejudice 
to blind her judgments and he was not afraid of the unre¬ 
paid loan to Mr. Dibden influencing her just estimate of 
his son. He was positive that he could get from her the 
confirmation of the opinion he himself had formed of Roger 
and, with that to back him, he was ready to put his thumb 
into the pie and extract therefrom the biggest plum he could 
find for him. 

At half-past twelve he returned to the house. The long 
table in the kitchen was laid and the place seemed, at first 
sight, to be crowded out with men. As a matter of fact 
there were only half a dozen, including Mr. Jolland, a short 
thickset individual with bushy white whiskers and a bald 
head. 

He came forward as John entered and held out a podgy 
hand. 

“ Pleased to meet you, Sir,” he said. “ Having a look 
round our parts?” 

“ No. As a matter of fact, I’ve run down from town to 
get a little information out of you.” 

“ And what may it be about, Sir?” enquired Mr. Jolland, 
a note of suspicion creeping into his voice. 

There is nothing your countryman dislikes so much as 
being cross-examined. 

“Oh, it’s not about anything very serious,” John reas¬ 
sured him. “ If you can spare me a minute after lunch, 
and Mrs. Jolland too, I’d be awfully obliged.” 

“ Dinner’s ready, Father,” interrupted Mrs. Jolland. 
“ Let the gentleman sit next you.” 



134 


A CERTAIN MAN 


They all moved to their places at the table, Mr. Jolland 
at the head of it with John on his right, backing on to the 
door, an empty chair opposite to him to be eventually 
occupied by Mrs. Jolland, who w r as superintending the 
carving of a huge round of beef at a side table. Next to 
John was a girl of about twenty-five or six, whom Mr. Jol¬ 
land briefly introduced as “ my youngest, Winnie/’ and 
beyond the empty chair sat a second edition of Mr. Jolland 
(minus the whiskers and bald head) whom John gathered 
was “ my boy, George.” 

The lower end of the table was filled by the farm men 
who lived in, a heterogeneous collection of grinning yokels 
who shuffled uneasily in their seats and nudged one another 
in the ribs whenever they met John’s eye. 

“Will you ask a blessing, Sir?” asked Mr. Jolland, and 
the entire company, who had only just seated themselves, 
rose again to their feet with a good deal of scraping of 
chair legs on the stone floor, while John said grace. 

On the wall behind the farmer, John noticed an enlarged 
photograph of a soldier in khaki with the name “ Richard 
Carruthers Jolland ” on an oblong brass plate let into the 
frame, and, below it, in another frame, one of those cards 
which were distributed during the war with the words “ A 
man has gone from this house,” printed in black letters on a 
white ground. 

So that there was Roger’s mentor and friend, Dick, of 
whom he had spoken. 

John looked with interest at it and Mrs. Jolland, on her 
way to take her seat, noticed him. 

“ Our eldest, Sir,” she said simply. “ He died in 
Salonica.” 

“ But we’ve still three left,” said her husband bravely. 
“ And Winnie here. We’re luckier than some.” 

He spoke almost as though he had had a rough and 
tumble with Fate and got the best of it at the cost of a 
few scratches. 

“ There’s Berry in Canada, and Walter, he’s in Aus- 



A CERTAIN MAN 


135 


tralia,” his wife took up the tale. “ And George here,” she 
patted her son’s arm with maternal pride, but John caught 
a glimpse of the hungry longing in her eyes and guessed at 
the blank in her heart which the living, dear to her as 
they were, could never quite fill. 

They talked on indifferent subjects after that until the 
meal was finished and the labourers and George clattered 
noisily out of the kitchen while Winnie, assisted by a 
couple of stout girls got trays and proceeded to clear the 
table. 

“Shall we go outside, Sir?” suggested Mr. Jolland, and 
he led the way, followed by his guest and Mrs. Jolland, to 
the garden seat on the little plot of grass at the side of 
the house where John had sat before dinner. 

“ I didn’t rightly catch your name, Sir,” he said politely, 
when they had settled themselves. Not for the world would 
he have made John uncomfortable by reminding him that 
the reason he did not know it was because it had never 
yet been mentioned. 

“ My name is Ffoulkes,” John told him. 

“Ah, Ffoulkes,” repeated Mr. Jolland, as though the 
information told him all he wanted to know. 

“ You haven’t come to bring us bad news about — about 
either of our boys, Sir?” asked Mrs. Jolland tremulously. 

John remembered the pathetic card hanging underneath 
Dick Jolland’s picture in the kitchen. “ A man has gone 
from this house,” it said. A man had gone from it, never 
to return, and the tender mother-heart, bruised and bleed¬ 
ing, had found it impossible to accustom itself to the idea 
that distance and danger were not necessarily synonymous 
terms. 

John reassured her hastily. 

“ No, no,” he said. “ I promise you it’s nothing of that 
sort.” 

“ The Missus gets worrying, Sir,” said Mr. Jolland. 
“ You see we had our four boys fighting and then we lost 
our eldest, besides having two wounded, and what with 



136 


A CERTAIN MAN 


Berry and Wally being so far off and all, she’s forever on the 
fidget like.” 

“ I can quite understand that,” John said. “ But I never 
even heard of your three youngest sons, or knew of their 
existence, until today.” 

44 Then it was Dick you knew,” said Mrs. Jolland quickly. 

“ No, Mrs. Jolland. I didn’t even know him, but he 
used to be very kind to — to a man I met a few days ago, 
and as I was anxious to find out something about this man, 
I thought you wouldn’t mind my coming to you for the 
necessary information.” 

“Who is this friend of Dick’s, Sir?” Mrs. Jolland asked 
quietly. 

“ His name is Roger Dibden,” John answered. 

“Master Roger!” exclaimed Mrs. Jolland, shaken out of 
her habitual calm. “ Why of course we know him well. 
It was Dick learned him all he knew about sport. He set 
great store by him, Dick did. 4 I’m going to learn him to 
be a man, for he won’t learn it from his Dad, who doesn’t 
know a horse from a cow, or a gun from a fishing rod,” 
Dick used to say, and it was true, too. The old gentleman 
was so wrapped up in his books that he’d even walk along 
the roads with his nose buried in one. So Dick took him 
in hand and turned him into a real country lad. Not but 
what Mr. Dibden fair worshipped the boy, I will say that, 
and when the trouble came — ” she stopped rather suddenly 
and looked enquiringly at her husband. 

44 Never you mind about the trouble, Mother,” he said. 
44 That’s past and done with. We don’t want to rake it 
up.” 

44 I know all about the trouble, Mr. Jolland,” John 
remarked. 44 Mr. Dibden made rather a mess of his money 
affairs, didn’t he?” 

44 Mess!” exclaimed the farmer. 44 He were in it up to 
the neck, and Master Roger left to pay the piper for the 
tune the old gentleman had called. Why, he owed me a 
matter of something like a hundred and fifty pun.” 



A CERTAIN MAN 


137 


“ But the master didn’t press for it, Mr. Ffoulkes,” put 
in Mrs. Jolland hurriedly. “ He’d been friendly like with 
Mr. Dibden and besides, our Dick was fond of the boy. 
Why! In the very last letter we had from him before — 
before he died, he spoke of Master Roger and the way he 
was left, and asked his Dad to let him off the money. We 
haven’t seen Master Roger since. He never came back to 
the place, not even for the funeral. Mr. Gundry, the 
lawyer over at Capel, settled up everything, as far as it 
could be settled, and the lad just disappeared. Folks said 
he couldn’t bear to face people about here, though I’m sure 
we’d have been glad enough to see him, for he wasn’t 
to blame. An honester lad than Master Roger never 
stepped the earth. Dick always said so and Dick knew 
him better than any other, his father included.” 

“ Never once caught him out in a lie, Dick said,” added 
Mr. Jolland. 

“ So you’ve seen Master Roger lately, Sir,” said Mrs. 
Jolland. “ To think of that now. And what’s been hap¬ 
pening to him all this long time?” 

“ I’m afraid he’s been a bit on his beam ends, Mrs. Jol¬ 
land,” John told her. “ But that’s all over now, I hope. 
He’s got friends helping him and they’ll put him on his 
feet again. It was really on that account that I came here 
today, because I wanted to get a testimonial from someone 
who had known him in the old days.” 

“ D’you mean a bit of writing, Sir?” asked Mr. Jolland. 

“ No, not necessarily writing,” John answered. “ Just 
inside information for my own satisfaction. Not that I had 
any doubts myself, but you see I’ve known him such a 
short time that I’m not in a position to give any 
guarantees.” 

“Well, Sir, you can trust him, take my word for it,” said 
Mr. Jolland. 

“ And mine,” his wife supplemented. “ I’ve watched 
him grow from a baby; he was in and out of here like as 
if it was his second home, following Dick about and trotting 


138 


A CERTAIN MAN 


at his heels like a little dog. He’d mind Dick when he’d 
mind nobody else, and Dick didn’t spoil him either. I’ve 
not forgotten one or two thrashings he gave him; once for 
telling a story, and another time for stealing some sweeties 
off the dresser in my kitchen. I remember I tried to beg 
him off, but Dick said 1 No.’ He said he’d got to be 
shaped while he was limber, else he’d shape himself and 
maybe do it wrong. Our Dick shaped him right, never 
fear.” 

“I thought I wasn’t mistaken about him,” John said 
gratefully. “ Now I can carry on.” 

“ But he’s proud, Sir. He wouldn’t have taken a licking 
from most,” the farmer said, chuckling. “ Do you remem¬ 
ber that time, Mother, when his kite flew off over Asher 
wood and got lost, and a gentleman passing offered him 
half-a-crown to buy another with? Gosh! I thought he’d 
hit him he was that upset.” 

“ Aye that I do,” said Mrs. Jolland. “ Nearly crying, he 
was, when he came and told me about it. ‘ I’m not a beg¬ 
gar boy,’ he said, clenching his tiny fist.” 

“ He’s a bit like that now,” remarked John grimly, as he 
got up to go. 

“ Well, give Master Roger my respects,” Mr. Jolland said, 
as John shook hands with him. 

“ And my love,” said kindly Mrs. Jolland, then in a 
lower tone so that it should not reach her husband’s ear, 
“ and Dick’s, Mr. Ffoulkes,” she added. 

It was a relief to John to have had this testimonial of 
Roger’s worth from the Jollands, not because he himself 
had any doubts of it, he had been sure of him from the 
first; but because it strengthened his hands in the none 
too easy task of finding him a job. Would-be employers 
could hardly be expected to accept his assurance as to 
Roger’s honesty on the very slender grounds of a week’s 
acquaintanceship with him and no other credentials. 

John could well understand how it was that Roger had 
fought shy of these friends even when he was desperate. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


139 


Even if he could have made up his mind to return to the 
place where his father had lived in honour and died in dis¬ 
honour, if he could have borne to risk the possible sneers 
of those who had once upon a time shown him deference as 
the son of one they looked up to and reverenced, there still 
remained the fact that there was a large sum of money 
owing to the Jollands which there was little prospect of 
their ever getting. Roger, it is true, could not, except in a 
moral sense, be held liable, but it had been for his sake 
that the debt had been incurred and although the Jollands 
had put in no claim and had held themselves aloof when 
the other creditors swooped down to save what they could 
out of the wreckage, it must have made it well-nigh 
impossible to get back on to exactly the same footing as 
formerly. 

He got back to Eddis Street in time for tea and had 
already started the meal when Roger, who had been out 
on his daily round of interviewing the insertors of enticing 
advertisements in the daily papers, came in. 

“Any luck?” John asked. 

Roger shook his head. 

“ References,” he replied tersely. “ You can’t blame 
’em. I’d be the same myself if I was an employer of 
labour. How do they know I won’t rob the till first oppor¬ 
tunity? I seem to be up a damned — sorry, Padre — a cul 
de sac” 

“ But even a cul de sac has a way out if one chooses to 
look for it,” declared John. “You may have to scale a wall, 
or batter on somebody’s front door and demand a passage 
through their house, or climb up a railway embankment 
and cross the line, but it can be done.” 

“ Or swim a canal, or tear one’s clothes on a barbed 
wire entanglement, or spike oneself on iron railings, or cir¬ 
cumvent a savage watch-dog guarding his master’s prem¬ 
ises. Oh yes, it can be done,” supplemented Roger, dryly. 
“ And we’ve left out the most obvious way out, which is the 
way in.” 



140 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“ Verboten” John warned him. “ If you’re always going 
back to where you started from you’ll never get anywhere.” 

“ I rather fancy there’s a flaw in your argument. Accord¬ 
ing to you the man who took the wrong turning would 
wander further and further out of the right way until he 
was hopelessly lost beyond any hope of recovery.” 

“ I’m assuming that the man’s objective lies in the direc¬ 
tion he’s making for,— that on the other side of the 
obstacle at the tip of the cul de sac is the journey’s end.” 

“ Nothing to do with lovers’ meetings, I trust?” enquired 
Roger, banteringly. 

“ Well, after all, you couldn’t get a much stronger 
objective, so why not, while we’re talking in parables, 
imagine that our man is on his way to keep tryst with 
the lady of his choice? If love’s strong enough to make 
the world go round, it’s strong enough to find a way through 
anything and everything that tries to bar its progress,” John 
replied. 

“ All the same, I think it’s generally quicker to go round,” 
observed Roger. 

“ It depends how far round you have to go,” John said. 
“ Have some more tea?” 

“ This discussion is now closed, Editor,” remarked 
Roger with mock pomposity. 

John laughed. It was a source of gratification to him to 
notice how, with good feeding, companionship and the tonic 
treatment which Mrs. Ottoway had advocated, Roger had 
regained a saner outlook on life and could even see that 
there was a humorous side to it. 

John waited until they had finished tea before telling 
Roger of his visit to Harwood. 

“ I met a friend of yours today,” he said. 

Roger, who was lighting his pipe by the fireplace, with 
his back to John, threw the match he had been using into 
the empty grate and turned to face the room. 

“A friend of mine!” he exclaimed wonderingly. “Was 
it Mrs. Rycroft?” 



A CERTAIN MAN 


141 


John shook his head. 

“ No it wasn’t Mrs. Rycroft,” he replied. 

“ I haven’t got any other friends except you,” Roger said 
with a puzzled frown. 

“ It was Mrs. Jolland.” 

“Mrs. Jolland!” 

“ Dick’s mother. She sent you her love — and Dick’s.” 

“Sent me Dick’s love! But Dick’s dead,” said Roger, 
mystified. 

“ I know Dick’s dead, but his love isn’t. D’you really 
suppose love is such a poor weak thing that it cannot out¬ 
last the accident of Death? It belongs to the soul, not the 
body, it’s real, and not just mere passion which is only a 
transient emotion masquerading as Love. 

“Anyhow, I’ve given you her message.” 

“ But how did you come to meet Mrs. Jolland?” asked 
Roger. 

“ I’ve been down to Harwood,” John answered. 

“Oh, so you’ve been down to Harwood. To find out if 
I had spoken the truth I suppose,” Roger said caustically. 

“ Not a bit of it. To be able to convince other people 
that I am speaking the truth when I tell them that you’re 
white,” John said quietly. “ The world’s a funny old 
place and doesn’t like accepting anything at its face value. 
It wants to know the rate of exchange before it does a 
deal.” 

“ I’m a suspicious brute,” Roger said contritely. “ I 
beg your pardon. I didn’t mean to — to say what I did. 
I’ve been an Esau for so long that I’ve rather got out of the 
way of trusting people, though goodness knows that I 
ought to trust you if I trust anybody for I’ve put you to a 
pretty stiff test of endurance. The clothes I wear, the food 
I eat, the very tobacco I’m smoking, in a pipe belonging to 
you, are all borrowed and I can’t even give you any security 
for them. Borrowing seems to be in the blood,” he con¬ 
cluded bitterly. 

“ Don’t start worrying about that,” John said. “ I’m 



142 


A CERTAIN MAN 


keeping a strict account. Up to date you owe me thirty 
shillings for board, a quarter of a pound of Navy Cut, seven 
and sixpence for incidental expenses and a pair of boots, 
and, if it will ease your tender conscience, I’ll add an item 
of five bob for hire of clothes.” 

“ I’ve worn a hole in your socks already!” said Roger 
ruefully. 

“ Then that will be another penny for darning material,” 
John informed him gravely. 

He had learned that it was better not to argue with 
Roger when he was in one of his abject moods but to 
employ the reductio ad absurdum tactics and, while 
ostensibly agreeing with him, gently lead him to see the 
somewhat ridiculous attitude he had adopted, which invari¬ 
ably had the effect of bringing him to his senses. 

He was also particularly careful never to show any signs 
of what he called the “ S. O. S. stunt,” that is to say he 
never, by either word or action, sought to exercise his pre¬ 
rogatives as a priest and poke an inquisitive finger into 
Roger’s soul. Spiritual patronage forcibly administered is 
apt to defeat its own ends and, besides, John was too 
humble-minded and too large-hearted to assume lightly that 
any other man was more lacking in inward grace than him¬ 
self. 

His methods on this occasion had the desired effect. 
Roger, instead of working himself up into a state of morbid 
introspection, laughed. 

“ Tell me about Harwood,” he said. “ While I smoke my 
borrowed tobacco in a pipe that has been lent me.” 

So John told him all about his visit to The Hill Plat, 
and what Mr. and Mrs. Jolland had said, and how pleased 
they had been to hear of Roger again, and how Mrs. Jolland 
had spoken of Dick and his affection for him, and he finished 
by repeating once more her parting message. 

“ I owe Dick Jolland a lot,” Roger said softly, when 
John had concluded his recital of the day’s doings. “ It 
wasn’t everyone I’d have stood a thrashing from (and he 



A CERTAIN MAN 


143 


could lay in too, and no mistake), but somehow I felt it 
was almost a compliment from him. You see, it was a case 
of hero-worship. Dick stood in my eyes for everything that 
was manly and right, and if he thought I needed a thrash¬ 
ing it never entered my head to question it. I just accepted 
it as I accepted any other decision of his. I honestly 
believe it was the thought of Dick and that thrashing he 
gave me for stealing those sweets that saved me the other 
night when — when I picked up that pendant thing. I 
was on the point of giving way when something he said 
that day, after he’d gruelled me, suddenly came into my 
head.” 

“ What was that?” asked John. 

“ He said ‘ If you were to grow up dishonest, Master 
Roger, I think I’d be too ashamed to live,’ ” Roger said. “ I 
don’t know why he constituted himself my moral guardian 
in that way. I suppose it was because he was fond of me, 
and of course my dear old Dad had no idea of training me 
by hand. He saw I said my prayers and learned my cate¬ 
chism and went to church on Sundays, and occasionally he’d 
talk about religion and that sort of thing to me, but it 
was always miles above my head and he never realised 
that I didn’t understand half he said. It was Dick who 
taught me to play the game and made me see that texts 
and catechism and church-going aren’t much good without 
truth and honour and clean-living to back them up. I 
daresay his creed seems a bit topsy-turvy to you but he 
always maintained that you had to learn the rules of life 
first and graft your religion on to them. Most people, I 
imagine, would put it the other way round and make 
religion the basis for the rest. Anyway, whether he was 
right or wrong, he worked upon those lines himself and 
proved them successful for he was one of the straightest 
men I’ve ever known. Dear old Dick.” 

“ One judges by results, not the method of arriving at 
them,” John said. “ After all, truth and honour and clean¬ 
living are essential parts of the Christian religion, so it 



144 


A CERTAIN MAN 


strikes me it doesn’t much matter if they are learned first, 
as long as it doesn’t end there and the other things follow. 
Your Dick must have been a big man.” 

“ One of the biggest,” said Roger enthusiastically. 

“ How did you hear of his death?” 

“ I happened to pick up an old copy of a paper in our 
rest billets that some previous occupier had left there and 
it was in the casualty list. At that time death seemed to 
be so much a part of one’s daily life that I think I hardly 
minded. It was only afterwards, when I knew death had 
passed me over, that I missed him. The world was so hor¬ 
ribly lonely without him somewhere in it.” 

There was silence for a few minutes, then Roger went 
over to John. 

“You’ve made it so that Dick isn’t ashamed — to live,” 
he said. “ Just remind me of that, will you, when I forget 
it myself?” 

Then before John could say anything in reply, he was out 
of the room and a second later, the front door banged. 



CHAPTER X 


The next morning brought a letter to John from his 
mother. It was a characteristic epistle consisting mostly of 
village gossip with a few loyal sentiments thrown in and a 
hope expressed that John was not tempted by the unusual 
warmth of the weather into lightly discarding his winter 
underclothing before May was out. 

But the chief interest for its recipient lay in the terse 
postscript. 

“ P. S. Mr. Peal is wanting a secretary if you should 
hear of anyone.” 

John read the brief statement over two or three times 
then glanced at Roger who was too engrossed in dissecting 
a bloater to notice the attention bestowed upon him. 

“ Can you type?” he asked abruptly. 

Roger paused in his absorbing occupation and looked up. 

“ Me?” he asked. 

“ You can’t talk grammar anyhow,” observed John. 

“ I can if I give my mind to it,” Roger said. 

“ D’you mean you can talk grammar or type?” enquired 
John. 

“ Both,” Roger answered. “ I was rather a dab hand 
with the typewriter when I was at school. It was the blood 
thing to do for a couple of terms. 

“ What d’you want to know for?” 

“ Cast your optics over that,” John said, tossing the let¬ 
ter to Roger. 

“ Am I to read it?” the latter enquired. 

“ The postcript,” John said. “ The rest wouldn’t interest 
you. It’s mostly on the iniquity of my mother’s washer¬ 
woman having dared to produce twins. My mother calls 
it improvident of her though I should have described it as 
the very opposite myself.” 


145 


146 


A CERTAIN MAN 


Roger carefully picked the letter out of the marmalade 
dish where it had fallen and read the bit indicated. 

“I say!” he exclaimed when he had done so. “Do 
you mean you think he’d take me on?” 

“ Well, I don’t see any reason against having a jolly 
good try for it anyway,” John said. “I’ve known old 
Peal all my life and he’s rather keen on me so I think he’d 
listen to what I say.” 

“What will you say?” Roger enquired eagerly. “It’s a 
bit di — difficult, isn’t it?” 

“ You know you’re the greatest adept at making moun¬ 
tains out of mole-hills that I ever met,” declared John. 
“ What’s there difficult about it?” 

“ Oh, I don’t know,” Roger said doubtfully. “ Only —” 

“ Only what?” John demanded. 

“ Oh, I don’t know,” Roger repeated in a helpless manner. 

“ You evidently don’t , from the maddening persistence 
with which you keep on telling me so,” John said. “ If you 
really are anxious to find out what I shall say I’ll be happy 
to show you the letter when I write to the old boy in which 
I propose to make him fully acquainted with the facts of 
the case.” 

“ Won’t that put him off?” asked Roger quickly. 

“ No. If anything it’ll put him on,” replied John. “ As 
I said just now, I’ve known old Peal all my life and he’s one 
of the kindest men going. Probably his only regret will be 
that you aren’t a reformed drunkard and an ex-convict.” 

“ What’s he like?” 

“ He’s nearing seventy, I should think, and he lives at my 
home, quite close to my people, at a biggish house called 
The Rise, with an old butler called Harcourt and an ancient 
housekeeper called Seal and an aged housemaid called 
Olivia, who keep a staff of underlings to do their work for 
them. I believe that years ago he had a wife who originally 
engaged Harcourt and Seal and Olivia and I fancy he 
regards them in the light of a legacy. Mrs. Peal only 
lived a year after their marriage so it practically was a 



A CERTAIN MAN 


147 


mere interlude in his bachelordom. He writes books on 
crustaceans which he publishes at his own expense because 
there’s no market for them and he’s gentleness itself unless 
the ornaments on the drawing room mantelpiece are not in 
their right places, when he becomes temporarily insane. 
I expect he’s starting another book. I suppose you don’t, 
by any lucky chance, know anything about crustaceans, do 
you?” 

“ Does that mean shrimps and things?” enquired Roger. 

“ Something of that sort, I fancy,” John answered. 

“ Then I’m afraid I don’t,” Roger said humbly. 

“ Oh, well, I don’t suppose that matters,” said John hope¬ 
fully. “ He probably only wants somebody to copy out 
his manuscripts.” 

“ I daresay I could swot it up,” Roger suggested. 

“ I’ll write to him anyhow directly we’ve finished break¬ 
fast. By the way, have you a second name, because if so 
he’ll want to know it. He’s dead nuts on names in full. I 
suppose it’s the result of crustacean research. I have an 
idea that shell-fish are corkers for names in full when 
they’re entered up in the stud book.” 

“ Well I have, but it’s one I rather try to forget,” Roger 
said. “It’s a bit — er — well, you know.” 

“ I don’t in the least,” John declared. “ Write it down if 
you’re shy of saying it out loud.” 

“ It’s Daniel,” Roger said, bringing it out with a rush. 

“ Great Scott! Nothing worse than that? I thought it 
was something awful like Vavasour or Brabazon or some¬ 
thing of that sort. I’d sooner have it than my second 
name.” 

“ What’s yours?” 

“ Treadaway,” John said. “ Did you ever hear anything 
so comic in your life? Just because my father had a friend 
with a ridiculous surname he must needs saddle me with it. 
I’m far more ashamed of it than you could possibly be of 
a respectable name like Daniel. Look sharp and finish 
your breakfast and we’ll concoct this epistle.” 



148 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“ I think I’ll leave it to you, Padre,” Roger said. “You 
know the sort of thing to say better than I do. Besides, I 
might check your flow of eloquence. You may want to 
write things that you’d rather I didn’t see.” 

“ So I may,” John said. “ Stand by with the dictionary 
then, in case I run to seed with my spelling. Spelling was 
never my strong point.” 

So Roger stood by with the dictionary while John wrote 
and at the end of half an hour he put down the pen with 
a sigh of relief. 

“ There, that’s done,” he exclaimed. “ I’ll post it on my 
way to church.” 

It was not till the following Monday that John got an 
answer. He was down before Roger and when he saw the 
envelope lying on the table he had to force himself to take 
it up and open it to find out whether the news it contained 
was good or bad. He dreaded the thought of having to tell 
Roger that the application had failed for he knew how high 
he had raised his hopes. 

With a heart beating with excitement he drew the letter 
out of its cover and sat down to read it. 

“ My dear John,” wrote Mr. Peal in his queer crabbed 
hand. “ It was most kind and thoughtful of you to write 
and tell me of your young friend. He sounds to be just the 
kind of person I am requiring and from what you say I 
gather that, quite apart from my own needs, his is a case 
deserving recognition and encouragment, for he appears 
to have had a rough time of it. I am more than content to 
accept your estimate of the young man’s character, sup¬ 
ported as it is by the testimony of the friends you mention 
who knew him in earlier days. I am engaged on a work of 
some importance relating to the different species of mollusca 
found around our coasts and although I am unable to offer 
Mr. Roger Daniel Dibden a permanent post, I require his 
services for at least five months, perhaps longer. The 
remuneration I propose to give is at the rate of twelve 
pounds a month with board and lodging in my house, and if 



A CERTAIN MAN 


' 149 


Mr. Roger Daniel Dibden considers this adequate I shall be 
pleased to engage him as from this day week (Saturday, 
June 3d). On hearing from you that Mr. Roger Daniel 
Dibden accepts this post I shall be most happy to forward 
him two months’ salary as no doubt he has several little 
things he wishes to purchase befofe he leaves town. Always, 
your sincere friend, Charles George Peal.” 

John didn’t wait a second after he had finished this 
stilted letter with its satisfactory news but rushed out of 
the room, narrowly escaping knocking over Mrs. Ottoway 
and a trayful of china en route, and tearing upstairs two 
steps at a time dashed into Roger’s bedroom without stop¬ 
ping to knock at the door. 

“ Oh, Roger Daniel Dibden,” he shouted, waving the let¬ 
ter over his head, “the mollusca round our coasts are call¬ 
ing aloud for you to come and assist in raising them from 
the oblivion in which, hitherto, they have been sunk.” 

“ What on earth are you talking about?” enquired Roger. 
Then, grasping the situation, “ Is it — it isn’t,” he gasped 
incoherently, letting the stud with which he was in the act 
of fastening his collar drop from his fingers and roll un¬ 
heeded under the chest of drawers. 

“ Isn’t it? It is!” cried John. “ Read.” 

He held out the letter to Roger who seized it eagerly and 
sitting down on the nearest available seat, which happened 
to be the bed, ran his eye over it. 

“ By Jove!” he said, when he had taken in the fact that 
he was actually engaged as Mr. Peal’s secretary. “ I can 
hardly believe it’s true.” 

“ It’s only a temporary job, that’s the fly in the oint¬ 
ment,” John ventured to point out, afraid lest Roger had 
failed to take in that drawback to the post and yet un¬ 
willing to damp his spirits. 

“ What’s a fly more or less when the ointment’s yours? 
This job gives me five months’ respite and when you’ve not 
dared to look twenty-four hours ahead, for fear of what 
lies beyond, five months is a life-time. Besides, I shall 



150 


A CERTAIN MAN 


start fresh with some money in my pocket and a reference, 
which I feel at present is a far more blessed word than 
Mesopotamia.” Roger got up from the bed and stretched 
his arms out wide as though he were casting off a heavy 
burden from his shoulders. 

“ I say,” he said shyly, “ I’m a rotten hand at speechify¬ 
ing but I am no end grateful to you. If it hadn’t been for 
you and — and Mrs. Rycroft, I’d have gone right under. 
I was just hanging on by my eyelids. I couldn’t have held 
on much longer. I don’t know that I wanted to hold on. 
I was so — so damned tired of it all. Life had strafed me 
till I was sore and there didn’t seem any use in anything. 
I’d have been glad to get out of the grind of living, but 
now — I’ve got my second wind and I mean to have a jolly 
good shot at it. And it’s all thanks to you two. By Jove! 
That thrashing of Dick’s had bigger results than even he 
could ever have anticipated, hadn’t it?” 

“ So many small causes go towards the making of a big 
result,” John said. “ If you’d been a minute later or 
earlier you wouldn’t have seen that pendant drop.” 

“ I say! What a perfectly ghastly thought,” exclaimed 
Roger. “ It makes me go cold all over.” 

“ Well, I don’t know about you, but I want my break¬ 
fast,” John said. “ I’m going down to it.” 

“ I’ll be with you in a jiffy,” Roger said. “ Don’t wait 
for me.” 

“ We must let Mrs. Rycroft know,” John observed later 
on, when they were at their meal. 

“ What’s Mr. Rycroft like?” enquired Roger curiously. 

“ Colonel Rycroft’s dead, and I can’t tell you what he 
was like because I never saw him,” answered John briefly. 

“ Then Mrs. Rycroft’s a widow,” Roger exclaimed. 

“ I love to see the velocity with which your brain works,” 
John said. “ As you have been quick to observe, Mrs. 
Rycroft is a widow.” 

“ I suppose Colonel Rycroft was killed in the war,” Roger 
remarked meditatively. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


151 


“ Colonel Rycroft died peacefully in his bed, having 
passed the age of being even a dug-out,” John informed him. 

“ D’you mean he was old?” Roger asked amazedly. 

“ Somewhere in the sixties,” John said. 

“Well I’m blest!” ejaculated Roger. 

“ One generally is at the marriage of one’s friends,” 
observed John dryly. “I’ve frequently noticed that every 
couple that decides to get married is considered a misfit by 
disinterested parties.” 

“ Or too interested parties,” Roger shrewdly amended. 

“ Look here, young feller, are you trying to be personal?” 
enquired John threateningly. “ Because if you are,” he 
added, “ you’ve come to the wrong shop.” 

For the space of a second or two Roger had a dreadful 
idea that he had really offended John and got fiery red, 
but he soon saw the twinkle in his eye and recovered 
himself. 

“ I say! I thought, for one awful minute, that I’d put my 
foot in it,” he gasped. “ I do wish you wouldn’t be funny 
at my expense before I’ve finished my breakfast. I’m like 
Mr. Ottoway who tells me he suffers from a tetchy inside.” 

“ What on earth’s that?” asked John. “ It sounds per¬ 
fectly loathsome.” 

“ It is, if Mr. Ottoway’s unbowdlerized description of it 
is to be relied upon. He regales me with his symptoms 
when he calls me in the morning. They mostly hit below 
the belt, and, according to their victim, are directly attribu¬ 
table to the Kaiser for having permitted air-raids over 
London. It appears that the bombs dropped from Zeppelins 
had a peculiar effect on Mr. Ottoway’s internal economy 
and caused it to turn tetchy. Doesn’t he ever tell you 
about it when he brings your shaving water?” 

“ Never, I’m thankful to say,” said John emphatically. 
“ To go to another subject, hadn’t you better start seeing 
about your kit today? You’ve only got five full days to do 
it in.” 

“ And no money,” Roger said. “ I’ll have to wait till my 



152 


A CERTAIN MAN 


boss sends me that twenty-four quid before I can get 
along.” 

“ Rot,” retorted John. “ I’ll fix you up for the time. 
At least we’ll mouch round to the bank when I’ve written 
to the old bird, and while I’m doing that, you might send a 
line to Mrs. Rycroft. I don’t quite know what my balance 
is, but you’re welcome to the loan of what there is. Oh, 
and let’s make out a list of what you’ll want. I haven’t 
heard Amelia sniffing about the house yet so I suppose she 
hasn’t come, but we can pile the breakfast things at one 
end of the table and turn back the cloth.” 

So between them they moved the things, recklessly put¬ 
ting them in heaps which wobbled ominously whenever they 
touched the table, and, fetching writing materials from 
John’s desk, sat down at the opposite end to the piled up 
crockery and set to work. 

“ You’ll have to get reach-me-downs, I’m afraid,” John 
said. “ Go to one of those misfit places in the Brompton 
Road — ” 

“ Where the marriages that aren’t made in heaven are 
made,” interrupted Roger. 

“ Don’t play the goat. This is a serious matter,” John 
admonished him severely. “ We’ll just put down the articles 
and settle how many of each you must have, afterwards. 
Now, I’ll sing them out and you jot them down. Ready? 
Pyjamas, vests, pants.” 

“ Hold hard a sec. How the dev — izes do you spell 
pyjamas?” asked Roger. 

“ Put it down as it comes into your head,” said John. 
“ As long as you recognise it that’s all that matters. Got 
it? Vests, pants, socks, boots, shoes, shirts, collars, ties, 
and etceteras.” 

“ What are they?” Roger enquired. “ It seems an awful 
lot without any extras.” 

“ My good ass, you must have a sponge and hairbrushes 
and so on,” said John. 

“ I’ve got a hairbrush and a toothbrush and a razor,” 



A CERTAIN MAN 


153 


Roger said meekly, “ I used to carry them about in my 
pocket.” 

“ Are they respectable ones?” demanded John. 

“ Well, perhaps not very,” Roger admitted. “ They’re 
a bit battered.” 

“ Sponge, hairbrushes, toothbrush, razor and any other 
little things you think of,” John said inexorably. “ You’ve 
got to consider Harcourt’s susceptibilities.” 

“ I’ve thought of one other little thing already,” Roger 
remarked. 

“ What?” asked John. 

“ A suit case to carry my expensive wardrobe about in,” 
Roger said humbly. “ I can’t get all the things on that list 
into my pocket, can I? I say, it looks a frightful lot. 
Shall I get ’em all for the money?” 

“ Yes, if you go to the right shops,” John said. “ If you 
take my advice, you’ll include a couple of pairs of shorts 
and some tennis shirts. That, and a pair of sand-shoes is 
all you’ll want in the daytime down there. You’ll probably 
spend a large part of your time in wading out to submerged 
rocks to study the limpet at home or track some rare mollusc 
to its watery lair. You can use my bathing suit till I come 
home for the holidays.” 

A loud sniff outside the door heralded the arrival of 
Amelia to clear away the breakfast things. 

“ Dash!” John exclaimed impatiently, “ I simply can’t set 
my mind to anything with that girl snuffling about the 
house.” 

“ I rather like it,” Roger said. “ It reminds me of a bull¬ 
dog I once had. His name was Hector. If you find Amelia 
getting on your nerves, try calling her Hector for a bit and 
whistling for her when you want her.” 

“ I never do want her,” John said with decision, as the 
door opened to admit the subject of their remarks who 
appeared with a large metal tray hanging dejectedly in 
front of her knees so that with each step she took, it 
emitted a hollow sound. That and the frequent sniffs which 



154 


A CERTAIN MAN 


accompanied it suggested the war-dance of some savage 
tribe heard from a distance. In the hand which was not 
occupied with holding the tray she carried a handkerchief, 
badly in need of a wash, with which she dabbed her nose 
at intervals. 

“ Bissus Oddoway wishes to know if both gentleben will 
be in to dinner,” she announced in a thick voice, with tray 
obligato. 

Having, it would appear, learned the message by heart, 
and considering her mission accomplished when she had 
delivered it she did not wait for any instruction on the 
subject but proceeded to clatter the china on to the tray, 
balancing the latter in a most precarious position on a 
knee uplifted so that it rested against the edge of the 
table. 

“ You’ll upset the whole caboodle in a minute,” Roger 
observed, gazing at the manoeuvre apprehensively. 

“ Thank you, Sir,” said Amelia gratefully, not attempting 
to change her course of action. 

“ I shall be in to lunch, Mr. Dibden will be out,” John 
said, speaking slowly and distinctly. 

“ Thank you, Sir,” repeated Amelia, once again apply¬ 
ing the handkerchief to her nose and squeezing it deprecat- 
ingly, at the same instant giving a prolonged sniff. 

Roger observed the action with keen interest. 

“ You can’t have it both ways, you know, Amelia,” he 
said. 

“No, Sir. Thank you, Sir,” she responded mechani¬ 
cally, without a notion of what he was driving at, but too 
polite to say so. 

When Amelia had finally departed kitchenwards with the 
last trayload, John heaved a sigh of relief. 

“ That’s all right,” he said thankfully. “ Now, pyjamas. 
Four suits I should think ought to do you.” 

“ Considering that for months I hadn’t one, I think I 
should feel a bit over-dressed with four,” Roger said. 
“Let’s make it three.” 



A CERTAIN MAN. 155 

“ Perhaps that would do as a start,” John conceded. 
“You can always get another in Hine.” 

“How far is Hine?” enquired Roger. 

“ Only about a mile by the cliffs and a couple by 
road. Hine’s the station for Porth Ros. The name of the 
village is really Surridge. Porth Ros is only, strictly 
speaking, the name of the bay. Oh, how beastly envious 
I am of you going there.” 

“ Are you awfully keen on the place?” asked Roger. 
“Keen on it!” John exclaimed. “There isn’t another 
place on earth. It’s the one and only.” 

“Why don’t you try for a living somewhere near?” 

“ That’s what my mother and aunt are everlastingly 
drumming into me. But I couldn’t. I’d feel like a deserter. 
I get positively sick with longing for the sight and sound 
of the sea. I’m like the chap in Masefield’s poem ‘ The 
Wanderer’s Song.’ Do you know it? It begins like this, 

1 A wind’s in the heart o’ me, a fire in my heels, 

I am tired of brick and stone and rumbling waggon- 
wheels ; 

I hunger for the sea’s edge, the limits of the land, 

Where the wild old Atlantic is shouting on the sand.’ 

That verse is quite enough for me. I feel like sitting down 
and crying at the end of it.” 

“ Go on. Don’t stop to cry. It’s simply top-hole,” Roger 
said, his eyes shining. 

So John went on, and at the end of the last two lines, 

“ ‘ And I’ll be going, going from the roaring of the wheels, 
For a wind’s in the heart o’ me, a fire in my heels’,” 

he said rather bitterly, 

“ Only I shan’t be going. This is the corner of the vine¬ 
yard I’ve been set in, against the dusty high-road, and I’ve 
got to forget the sunny slopes and do the best I can with it.” 



156 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“ I say! It must be awful to feel as bad as that about 
it,” Roger said sympathetically. 

“ It’s the giving in to it that’s awful,” John said despond¬ 
ently. “ I get the most frightful twinges of conscience 
about it. Mrs. Ottoway puts it down to the Spring. Oh, 
for goodness sake let’s get back to your lingerie and forget 
it. Now how many vests do you think you’ll want?” 

So for the next quarter of an hour the two devoted them¬ 
selves to the knotty question of Roger’s requirements and 
disputed quantities with due deliberation as befitted the 
gravity of the situation. Then they concocted a letter to 
Mr. Peal, accepting the post of secretary for Mr. Roger 
Daniel Dibden, which the latter copied out and signed, 
after which they “ mouched round ” to the bank where 
John discovered his credit stood at ten pounds, fourteen and 
fivepence, whereupon he drew a cheque for ten pounds and 
handing over the money to Roger for current expenses, 
despatched him, protesting, to the West End to replenish, 
or, more accurately speaking, to furnish his wardrobe as 
far as the cash in hand would permit. John, sitting down 
to his solitary lunch at one o’clock, felt quite a sense of 
loneliness without the companionship to which he had be¬ 
come accustomed, and he began to realise that during the 
ten days which Roger had spent under the same roof with 
him, a feeling of something deeper than mere pity for one 
on whom fortune had cast an evil eye had taken root. A 
very real liking for this boy (for Roger was little more) 
had sprung up in John’s breast and he felt a personal sense 
of responsibility towards him and as if it were up to him 
to act as a kind of guardian. 

He broke the news of Roger’s intended departure to Mrs. 
Ottoway when that good lady set before him the rice 
pudding that succeeded the chop that had formed the pibce 
de resistance of his mid-day repast. 

“ Going, is ’e,” she remarked regretfully. Well, a nicer 
spoken young gentleman I never did see, and ’ad ’is bath 
every morning as regular as you, though after what one 



A CERTAIN MAN 


157 


’ears of those nasty trenches one could excuse anybody for 
contracting dirty ’abits. I’m sorry we’re going to lose ’im, 
I’m sure, for he’s been nice company for you and it’ll seem 
dull to sit alone at meals after getting used to somebody to 
talk to, but there it is! We can’t stop the world wagging 
by setting the clock back. I suppose ’e’ll want clothes and 
all to take with ’im, for you can’t spare ’im what ’e’s got 
on. You’re short of socks as it is, as I was meaning to tell 
you, for at the rate you’re going, what you ’ave got are 
mostly darn. You seem to walk through ’em as easy as a 
young lady at a circus jumps through a paper ’oop.” 

“ I’ll get some more,” John said absently. “ He’s going 
on Saturday and today’s Monday. That’s five days from 
now. He’s going to my home, you know.” 

“What! To live with your Ma?” asked Mrs. Ottoway 
in astonishment. 

“ No, not actually to the house I live in, but to one in 
the same place. He’s going to help a gentleman living 
there with a book he’s writing.” 

“To think of that now, and ’im turning up ’ere in rags. 
Well I only ’ope ’e can spell,” exclaimed Mrs. Ottoway, 
who appeared to think there was some subtle connection 
between orthography and the art of dressing well. 

“ Yes. I think he can,” John said. “ He was at a 
public school, you know.” 

“ Well, Ottoway was at a board school but ’e can’t spell, 
so it don’t always follow,” observed Mrs. Ottoway perti¬ 
nently. “We must just ’ope for the best, that’s all, for it 
’ud be a pity for ’im to lose ’is job through writing down 
words ’e wasn’t meant to.” 

“ It would, wouldn’t it?” agreed John gravely. 

Roger got back about six o’clock that evening, and a 
few minutes later, while he was displaying his purchases to 
John, Mrs. Ottoway appeared at the door, bearing in her 
hand a volume in a dingy brown cover. She advanced into 
the room with a hesitancy quite foreign to her usual 
decided methods, and the two men looked at her in surprise. 



158 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“ Is anything wrong, Mrs. Ottoway?” John asked 
anxiously. 

“ No, there’s nothing wrong,” said Mrs. Ottoway slowly. 
“ Only it flashed into my mind about this book. Ottoway 
bought it with a lot of other rubbidge at a sale and I 
thought maybe — if Mr. Dibden would care — well, ’e 
might find it useful to ’im in ’is new place — not that I 
want to take a liberty — but if it ’elped ’im to give satis¬ 
faction, I’m sure ’e’s most welcome.” 

She thrust the volume into Roger’s hands and fled from 
the room in confusion. 

“ Walker’s Pronouncing Dictionary,” read out Roger 
solemnly, then lay back in his chair and laughed till the 
tears rolled down his cheeks. 

“ All the same,” he pronounced, when he had recovered 
himself, “ Mrs. Ottoway’s an angel, and I shall take the 
first opportunity of telling her so.” 



CHAPTER XI 


Biddy, having been duly warned of Roger’s impending 
departure, had written to invite him and John, on the 
latter’s next free day, to lunch, so the following Thursday 
saw them setting out. 

Roger, still dressed in John’s gray flannel suit, because 
the clothes he had purchased in the Brompton Road 
required some alterations made to them and had not yet 
been sent home, but, for the rest, clad in garments of his 
own, was obviously somewhat ill at ease. 

The last time he and Biddy had met had been that after¬ 
noon in John’s room on which occasion he had been pain¬ 
fully aware of the deficiencies of his apparel, and he was 
feeling very self-conscious and, as he had done when he 
had first donned uniform, rather conspicuous, a feeling 
which his neat black and white striped shirt with a collar 
to match, his plain dark blue silk tie, his Oxford shoes and 
his black cashmere socks with an unobtrusive mauve clock, 
did nothing to justify. 

John, sitting beside him on the top of the tram which bore 
them citywards, watching him, out of the corner of his 
eyes, putting on his gloves only to take them off again, 
straightening his tie, removing his hat to smooth down his 
already smooth hair and displaying other signs of acute 
nervousness, guessed something of what was passing in his 
mind and set to work to try and reassure him. 

“ I don’t suppose there’ll be anybody there besides our¬ 
selves, except Miss Bellamy,” he said. 

Roger looked round at him sharply. 

“ Who’s Miss Bellamy?” he asked suspiciously. 

“ She was Biddy’s governess in old days,” John replied. 
“ Now she, Biddy, is a widow, Miss Bellamy has come 
back to her as sort of — well, with anybody else I should 

159 


160 


A CERTAIN MAN 


call it chaperone, only as Biddy is a widow I suppose she 
doesn’t need one.” 

“ Doesn’t she?” asked Roger dryly. “ Though I’m the 
last person who has the right to make any comment I 
should have rather thought she did.” 

“ You’ll find out in time that Biddy is a law unto herself,” 
John said, a trifle amused at Roger being the one to pass 
judgment on Biddy for having thrown convention overboard 
and admitted him, an unknown quantity at that time, 
inside her house at an hour when all the other occupants of 
it were in bed and asleep. 

Roger must have gleaned some hint from John’s voice 
that the latter was diverted, for he set his jaw obstinately as 
he said, 

“ It’s all very fine. I know what you’re thinking, but sup¬ 
posing I’d been a wrong ’un, where ’ud Mrs. Rycroft have 
been then, I should like to know? You may laugh, but I 
give you my word I lie in bed and sweat when I think of 
the awful risk she just barged into without giving it a 
moment’s consideration and without so much as turning a 
hair at the sight of me as I must have appeared then.” 

“ One lies in bed and sweats at such rotten things,” 
observed John adroitly. “ One’s vitality at two o’clock 
in the morning isn’t constructed to bear heavy weights. 
It’s the hour when churchyards yawn, and one hears 
burglars in the room below, if one is not too engrossed in 
making entries on the debit side of one’s conscience or 
numbering one’s days.” 

“ What’s Miss what’s-her-name like?” Roger enquired 
with a slightly overdone air of nonchalance. 

“ How d’you mean?” 

“Well, is she of the — er — dragon variety?” 

John considered. 

“ No. I shouldn’t call her that,” he said meditatively. 
“ More of the faithful watch-dog type I think.” 

“I know. Barks at strangers. Oh Lord!” ejaculated 
Roger. “ D’you think she knows about — me?” 



A CERTAIN MAN 


161 


“ I really couldn’t say,” replied John. “ Why? Do you 
mind?” 

“ I don’t mind her knowing I was — what I was, but I 
think I do rather mind her knowing how Mrs. Rycroft 
came to make my acquaintance,” confessed Roger. “ You 
see,” he went on, “ if she’s at all hidebound, she’ll mark me 
down as a rotter straight away for having dared to cross 
the threshold that night, and she’ll never believe that I was 
so taken by surprise that I honestly didn’t quite realise 
what was happening until I found myself in the hall with 
the door shut behind me. Of course I ought to have insisted 
on going the minute the coast was clear, but I simply hadn’t 
the strength of mind. The fact of the matter was, I sup¬ 
pose, that the contrast between past and present was too 
much for me. I couldn’t resist wallowing in luxury. It was 
like getting into a hot bath after a long cold journey. Once 
in, I dreaded the thought of getting out again and delayed 
it to the last possible moment.” 

“ My dear chap, I shouldn’t worry myself about it if I 
were you,” John said consolingly. “ I’ve no doubt there 
are a lot of people who would be profoundly shocked if they 
knew about it. There are always people ready to condemn 
on superficial evidence and to put a wrong construction on 
any situation which deviates the fraction of an inch from 
the hum-drum path in which their feet are set, but they 
really don’t matter. They have their counterpart in those 
who support their religious arguments with an isolated 
verse out of the Bible, light-heartedly ignoring the context 
which may, and often does, qualify it. You needn’t be 
afraid of Miss Bellamy. She’s an understanding sort of 
person. Even if Biddy has told her, which I very much 
doubt, she’ll reserve judgment until she’s seen you and can 
form her own impressions.” 

“ And supposing they’re unfavorable,” Roger said in 
depressed tones. 

“ They won’t be,” retorted John decidedly. 

It was a comfort to Roger, when he and John were admit- 



162 


A CERTAIN MAN 


ted into Mrs. Rycroft’s house, to find that Barnby 
appeared to take him for granted and did not waste a second 
glance at him, after he had relieved him of his stick and 
hat. 

He wondered with a little secret amusement, what the 
butler’s feelings would be if he ever happened to find out 
the conditions under which this guest of his mistress had 
previously entered the house. There was a certain 
piquancy in the situation which appealed to his sense of 
humour. 

He looked about him with curiosity as Barnby piloted 
them across the hall to the staircase. The sunshine was 
streaming in through the two large windows on each side 
of the front door, making a contact with the world outside. 
The other night when he had been here it had almost 
seemed as though there were nothing real beyond the con¬ 
fines of the four walls, as though he and Biddy were the 
only substantialities in a world of shadows. Except for the 
one brief period when the policeman had interrupted they 
had been alone together, and the contrast between his sur¬ 
roundings and those from which he had so lately emerged, 
had made everything appear unreal and dreamlike. 

Biddy and Miss Bellamy were in the drawing room when 
they were shown in and the former rose from her chair as 
the door was thrown open and advanced to meet them with 
outstretched hand. 

John observed that Miss Bellamy bestowed upon his 
companion the same penetrating gaze as she had done with 
him when he had first been introduced to her, and he 
wondered what the verdict was to be. He was unable, from 
her manner, to draw any conclusion as to whether Biddy 
had told her of the incidents connected with the beginning 
of her acquaintanceship with Roger, although he fancied 
he could detect a certain reservation about her ^s if she were 
determined not to show any prejudice she might feel. She 
did not attempt to shake hands with Roger when Biddy 
introduced him but contented herself with a slight inclina- 



A CERTAIN MAN 


163 


tion of the head and John had a shrewd suspicion that 
Roger also remarked the reservation and put it down to the 
same cause, for he got rather red and set his jaw in that 
obstinate curve which was a sign that, as far as he was 
concerned, the rest of the world might go to the Deuce 
provided it didn’t presume to criticise his actions or inter¬ 
fere with his right to decide his own line of conduct. 

Biddy, of course, must have given some explanation of 
Roger’s presence today and John wished he knew what it 
was, for he was terribly afraid of making a mat a propos 
remark which would excite comment on Miss Bellamy’s 
part. 

However, it was too late now to discover what it was, so, 
resigning himself to fate, he went across to where that lady 
sat and greeted her. 

“ How are you?” he said. 

He was standing between her and Biddy and she took 
advantage of the fact to grin mischievously up into his face. 

“ Thank you, I’ve been in the doctor’s hands since I saw 
you last,” she replied, at the same time giving him a little 
kick on the ankle. 

With all that had happened since his last visit John had 
entirely forgotten the plot which had been hatched on that 
occasion, but he remembered it now and grinned back. 

“Nothing serious, I hope,” he said gravely. 

“No. Nothing really serious she returned in like man¬ 
ner. “ Just a change needed.” 

“ Oh, yes, John. That reminds me,” put in Biddy. “ Dr. 
Neame recommends the North Cornish coast for her. I 
suppose you don’t know of any house to let in about six 
weeks from now?” 

“ The doctor forbids me to undertake the long journey at 
present,” said Miss Bellamy with assumed plaintiveness. 
“ He wants to be quite sure his treatment is answering 
before I leave London, I suppose.” 

John drilled his features into the expression suitable to 
the occasion before replying. He didn’t much like being 



164 


A CERTAIN MAN 


made a party to hoodwinking Biddy in this way but, as 
matters had gone so far, he couldn’t very well give Miss 
Bellamy away and he tried to console himself and his con¬ 
science by reminding himself that it was for Biddy’s ulti¬ 
mate good that the scheme had been hatched. 

“ There’s The Windy Mount,” he answered. “ The 
people who took it can’t use it and they want to sublet, I 
believe.” 

“ The house we had when we were there before,” 
exclaimed Biddy. “ Oh, John! It’ll be so different. It 
makes me rather — frightened. I shall see so many 
changes.” 

“ I don’t think you’ll find it changed much since the last 
time you were down there,” John said, wilfully misin¬ 
terpreting her meaning. 

“ I don’t mean in the place. I mean in myself,” she said 
a little wistfully. “ Comparisons are odious. I shall feel as 
if I’ve been put back in the window marked ‘ shop-soiled ’! 
I shall feel like Stevenson did when he wrote ‘ All that was 
me is gone.’ There’s none of old ‘ Me ’ left now. I shall 
realise it so horribly when I get back.” 

“ Nonsense, Biddy,” said John emphatically, because he 
wanted to cover a lurking sense of guilt. “ There’s plenty 
of the old ‘ Me,’ as you call it, in you. You’ll find it out 
when you get back and see the — the familiar landmarks,” 
he concluded with a hasty sidelong glance at Miss Bellamy 
which she elected not to notice, though she was fully aware 
of it. He had had a lingering hope that she might come to 
the rescue but evidently she had no intention of doing so 
for she was apparently engrossed in her knitting and oblivi¬ 
ous to the conversation. 

John remembered the anecdote of the caviare and pre¬ 
sumed that she considered this to be one of the occasions 
when experience was to teach a salutary lesson without 
her interference. 

All the time this had been going on, Roger had stood 
there not quite knowing what to do. The talk had drifted 



A CERTAIN MAN 


165 


into channels in which he was altogether out of his depth 
and everybody seemed to have forgotten him. No one had 
offered him a seat and he didn’t like to take one uninvited 
for fear of appearing to be making himself too much at 
home in the house of a comparative stranger, so he remained 
standing where he was, feeling very self-conscious and con¬ 
spicuous and shy. 

It was Biddy who came to his rescue. 

“ Anyway, it can’t possibly be of the slightest interest to 
Mr. Dibden to listen to this soulful outpouring,” she said, 
turning to him with a little smile. “ Besides, I want to 
hear all about Mr. Peal and the whelks. Isn’t it whelks he 
collects? I believe I remember him. Isn’t he the thin 
person with sandy hair who used to wander about in an 
aged shooting jacket of indeterminate hue with the striped 
nether portion of a bathing suit showing below it? He was 
always my ideal of Robinson Crusoe. Don’t you recollect, 
John, the funny old butler who used to bring him out a 
basket of provender at one o’clock every day and wander 
distractedly along the water’s edge peering disconsolately 
among the rocks to try and discover his master? He was 
known as Man Friday. I needn’t tell you I shall call you 
Man Friday, Mr. Dibden, when I meet you down at 
Porth Ros. I wonder if it’ll be one of your jobs to slosh 
about in pools dressed in a striped bathing suit and a shoot¬ 
ing jacket. I shouldn’t be in the least surprised if, by this 
time, Robinson Crusoe had developed into a sort of merman, 
with shiny green scales where the stripes used to be and an 
undulating tail instead of the pair of skinny legs that looked 
more like sticks of celery than human limbs. Oh, dear! 
Now that I begin to talk about it, it almost makes me hope 
that I shall find a few pieces of the old Me lying round and 
be able to fit them together again and enjoy the spectacle 
of dear Robinson Crusoe holding post mortem on the bodies 
of obscure shell-fish.” 

She paused breathlessly and Roger, his shyness dispelled 
by her flow of nonsense, found himself laughing quite 



166 


A CERTAIN MAN 


naturally and forgetting the fact, of which, till this moment, 
he had been painfully conscious, that the last time he had 
been admitted to this house he had been a vagrant with his 
clothes in rags and his feet coming through his boots. 

He was probably more conscious of the contrast than 
Biddy, for she found it difficult to identify this good-looking 
gentlemanly boy, with his well-cared-for kempt appear¬ 
ance, his tidy clothes which, though they had not been made 
for him, yet fitted him sufficiently to show off his figure to 
advantage, his sleek hair rippling back from his forehead, 
his face, with the somewhat olive complexion, no longer 
sallow and pinched but glowing with health and vitality — 
as the tatterdemalion of a fortnight ago, whose patched 
garments hung loosely from his bent shoulders, who stood 
badly in need of a visit to a barber, and who gave the im¬ 
pression that life wasn’t worth the struggling for and that 
it would be easier to give in and own himself worsted than 
to fight on against fearful odds until his inexorable adver¬ 
sary, playing with him as a cat plays with a mouse, saw fit 
to deal him the knockout blow and put him out of his 
misery. 

The contrast was so pronounced that Biddy felt as though 
it were impossible that her guest of today should be the 
same Roger Dibden who had knocked so timidly on her 
door that night and who had broken down and cried from 
sheer weariness and desolation at the first little bit of sym¬ 
pathy and kindness that had been shown to him for weeks. 

Looking at him as he stood there, the spontaneous laugh¬ 
ter issuing from his lips, his eyes sparkling with boyish 
amusement, Biddy was suddenly overwhelmed with pride 
in him, not unmixed with a kind of trepidation. She was 
answerable for this transformation, she and John between 
them. She felt like a mother does who, in one blinding 
flash, realises that the child, whom she has tended and cared 
for, is a child no longer, but a man who has no further 
need of her ministrations, and she experienced, in the 
minutest degree, that stab of jealousy which a mother 



A CERTAIN MAN 


167 


experiences at the supreme moment when she silently bids a 
last farewell to the child and welcomes, in his stead, the 
man who is almost a stranger, to her, and who can never 
quite oust from her mind the memory of what has been and 
can never be again. 

Not that Biddy ever thought of putting her feelings on 
such a high plane as this. She would have laughed to scorn 
the bare suggestion that they had anything of the maternal 
in them in connection with Roger, her junior by three years, 
but then she did not appreciate the fact that the maternal 
instinct is implanted in the female breast from the moment 
that the first rag doll is clasped to it. She was proud, but 
she was also a little bit frightened. She recollected having 
read in some old book of a strange old belief which claims 
that the life of one saved by another from death is no longer 
his own but the property of the man who has saved it, to 
do with as he wills. 

She had snatched this boy from worse than death. She 
had rescued him from social and moral disintegration; there¬ 
fore, if the superstition were true, he belonged to her, was 
her vassal, her man, for whom she was responsible and 
whose destiny she had the right to mould if she so desired. 

It was only for a brief second that the sensation gripped 
her but it was long enough for her to know that this man 
could never be quite the same to her as other men; that he 
must always stand in a class alone. Their lines had crossed 
and become entangled and no human power could henceforth 
separate them. He and she might never meet again but 
somewhere in the world there would be one whose destiny 
she had helped to fashion. 

With an effort she wrenched herself free from her fanci¬ 
ful thoughts and forced herself to return to the subject of 
the house at Porth Ros. 

“ I’ll take down the address of that house, John, or 
rather, the name of the owner of it,” she said, going over to 
the writing table and getting a pencil and a piece of paper. 
“ I’ve forgotten who it was we took it from.” 



168 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“ You took it from old Thorald Marchant but it belongs 
to a Mrs. Long now,” John told her. 

“The Windy Mount! It sounds draughty.” Miss Bel¬ 
lamy shivered apprehensively. “ Is it draughty, Mr. 
Ffoulkes?” 

“ I hope you aren’t going to tell me that you are begin¬ 
ning to regret your visit to Doctor Neame,” John said, grin¬ 
ning meaningly at her. 

“ I went to Doctor Neame because I thought it neces¬ 
sary, not because I’m one of those silly neurotic females 
who enjoy a visit to a medical man. In the same way I am 
prepared to sit in a perpetual draught if it’s absolutely 
necessary but I’m not going to pretend I shall like it. 
Sometimes, Mr. Ffoulkes, it is expedient to suffer in a good 
cause. The early Christian martyrs did so, I’ve always 
been lead to understand, but you’ll never make me believe 
they contemplated the stake or the arena or whatever their 
particular form of martyrdom was to be with any expecta¬ 
tion of getting some enjoyment out of it.” 

“ Fancy, in this heat, objecting to anything cooling,” 
exclaimed Biddy, as she noted the name of the owner of 
The Windy Mount and tucked away the paper inside the 
front of her dress. “ Come out on to the balcony, Mr. Dib- 
den, and get a breath of fresh air before we go down to 
lunch.” 

She led the way out through the open French window 
with Roger following and when they were gone Miss Bel¬ 
lamy turned to John. 

“Is that attractive young man the one Biddy met the 
other day at your rooms when she elected to rush off and 
have tea with you at five minutes’ notice?” she asked. 

John countered the question with another. 

“ Do you find him attractive? I somehow fancied you 
didn’t catch on to him.” 

“ What makes you think that I didn’t ‘ catch on to him ’ 
as you elegantly express it?” 

“ Well, you didn’t seem to have much to say to him.” 



A CERTAIN MAN 


169 


“ What does one talk about to a strange young man of 
whom one knows nothing? I hate obvious remarks about 
the weather; I haven’t an idea of the direction in which 
his tastes lie, and I couldn’t ask after his mother because 
I don’t even know if he possesses such a thing.” 

“ Besides which, he’s no use as a landmark,” suggested 
John with malice aforethought. 

Miss Bellamy regarded him critically. 

“ Why are you so anxious for me to catch on to him?” 
she asked. 

John considered for a moment, then extracted two pennies 
from his pocket and solemnly handed them to Miss Bellamy 
who examined them through her glasses with bewilderment 
as though it were the first time she had ever seen such a 
thing as a copper coin. 

“ What’s that for?” she enquired, not attempting to take 
them from him. 

“ ‘ When I come again I will repay thee,’ ” quoted John. 

Miss Bellamy looked up at him quickly. 

“ I do wish you wouldn’t talk in hieroglyphics,” she said 
impatiently. “ Is it a bribe or what?” 

“ It’s a symbol,” John informed her gravely. “ A certain 
man, if you remember, went down from Jerusalem to 
Jericho and fell among thieves.” 

A light dawned upon Miss Bellamy. 

“ Do you mean that boy? Is he a ‘ certain man ’?” 

John nodded. 

“ And you set him on your beast?” she went on. 

“No. I was the beast he was set on — by Biddy. Oh, 
a very willing beast, I can assure you,” he concluded 
hastily \n case she should misinterpret his meaning. “ I 
bore him gladLy to the inn.” 

“ It appears to be rather a mixed metaphor,” observed 
Miss Bellamy. “ I don’t recollect ever having read that the 
beast took out two pence. And when, pray, did Biddy pass 
that way? She never mentioned anything about it to 
me.” 



170 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“ Then, no doubt, she didn’t wish you to know anything 
about it,” John rejoined with promptitude. “ Don’t let her 
guess I told you.” 

“ That’s all very well, but it doesn’t explain why you 
cast me for the part of host,” objected Miss Bellamy. 
“What’s my line of conduct to be?” 

“ Just to take care of him when you meet him, as you 
are bound to do, at Porth Ros. That boy is one of the 
most terribly lonely people I know, and loneliness isn’t 
natural at his age. It’s fraught with many and great 
dangers. When there’s nobody much to care whether you 
sink or swim it’s so much easier to float with the tide, and if 
the tide happens to be going out — ” He stopped, and 
made an expressive gesture with his hands. 

Miss Bellamy gave a backward glance in the direction of 
the French window through which Roger and Biddy were 
visible on the balcony. Roger was leaning with his back 
against the balustrade supporting himself by the palms of 
his hands which were pressed down on the top of the stone 
coping. His head was thrown back and he was laughing 
at some remark of Biddy’s who stood facing him. 

“ The tide doesn’t appear to be going out very rapidly,” 
Miss Bellamy observed dryly. 

“ Let’s hope it’s on the turn,” John said. 

“ Let’s hope so,” agreed Miss Bellamy. “ In any case, I 
still don’t see where I come in. As far as I can make out 
I’m a mere superfluity. I fulfill no useful purpose.” 

“ On the contrary, you fulfill a very useful purpose,” 
John assured her. 

“ What is it then?” she asked. 

John hesitated a moment before replying. 

“When people are very young,” he said at length, 
speaking slowly and deliberately, “ they’re sometimes rather 
apt to resent criticism from their contemporaries which they 
would accept willingly from those older than themselves. 
I’m very fond of Roger but he’s an obstinate beggar and 
as independent as they make ’em. This job he’s going 



A CERTAIN MAN 


171 


to is only temporary and at the end of five or six months 
he’ll have to be looking round for another.” 

“My dear Mr. Ffoulkes! I sincerely hope you aren’t 
expecting me to find him another.” 

“ No. Not that,” John said. “ But I want you to try 
and gain his confidence. You can, if you like, you know. 
Get him to talk to you about things and stop him from 
flying off at a tangent. He’s the kind of chuckle-headed 
young ass who’ll sacrifice everything to his beastly pride 
and slip away without a word sooner than hoist a signal 
of distress. That sort will never believe that there are 
others glad to help them. They insist on regarding them¬ 
selves as harpies and parasites whenever any practical 
sympathy is shown to them. Because it isn’t in their power 
to give they deny that blessing to anybody else and refuse 
to acknowledge that true charity is not puffed up. It was 
a difficult enough job to persuade Roger to be set on the 
beast the first time; it’ll be an impossible one the second 
unless he’s gradually worked up to the idea.” 

“ And you choose me for the post of preceptor. Why 
me? Why not Biddy?” 

A low ripple of laughter came in through the open win¬ 
dow. 

“ That’s why,” John said, nodding his head in the direc¬ 
tion whence the sound came. “ One doesn’t put one child 
out of a class to teach the rest of them.” 

“ So the decayed governess is called in.” 

John shook his head. 

“ Not the decayed governess,” he said. “ Let’s call it the 
spare mother.” 

A little smile, half whimsical, half wistful, played like a 
flicker of light on Miss Bellamy’s lips for a moment then 
died away again. 

“ I’m afraid that sounds too mechanical to ring quite 
true. It is reminiscent of motor cars and incubators and 
other man-made contrivances,” she said ruefully. “ Why 
not say a broody hen while you’re about it? A broody hen 



172 


A CERTAIN MAN 


spends a perfectly beastly time sitting on another hen’s 
eggs and when they hatch out fondly imagines that the 
chicks are hers and that she alone is responsible for them. 
Well, I’m prepared to sit on Mr. Dibden if you wish it but 
I can’t promise that he’ll hatch out.” 

“ He’s not a bad egg, if that’s what you’re hinting at,” 
put in John hastily. 

“ I’m not hinting at anything,” said Miss Bellamy. “ I 
don’t know enough about him to pass an opinion one way or 
the other.” 

John regarded her critically. 

“ You’re prejudiced against him. I wonder why,” he said 
reflectively. 

“ I’m not prejudiced in the least,” she maintained. “ I’m 
merely wondering where he fits into our scheme or whether 
he fits in at all. You must, in justice to me, bear in mind 
that I am completely ignorant of the circumstances con¬ 
nected with this young man’s sudden appearance upon the 
scenes. No doubt there is some excellent reason for reti¬ 
cence on the subject but the fact remains that he is some¬ 
thing of a mystery and, being so, one naturally conjectures 
about him. I feel I am behaving in rather a Panterish 
manner but, if I am, you’re the one to blame.” 

There was a long pause during which Miss Bellamy 
knitted vigorously while John stood by, devoutly wishing 
that Biddy had had the courage of her convictions and had 
made a clean breast of the whole affair. He sympathized 
with Miss Bellamy’s feelings in the matter but it did seem 
rather hard that he should be held responsible, and he was 
debating how to exculpate himself without involving Biddy 
when she broke the silence. 

“ I’m a detestable old woman,” she suddenly said. “ For¬ 
give me, Mr. Ffoulkes, for being so silly. I begin to suspect 
that unsatisfied curiosity has something to do with it. You 
see, Biddy has always told me everything and trusted me, 
so I daresay I felt a little hurt at being kept out of her 
counsels on this occasion. I sometimes forget that she’s no 



A CERTAIN MAN 


173 


longer the child I guarded and cared for fifteen years ago 
but a grown woman. I suppose the older one grows the 
harder it is to shake off a habit and it’s one of my habits 
to look on Biddy as a charge, so I find it difficult to 
realise that she has the perfect right to shut me out of 
anything she chooses and that I have not the right to com¬ 
plain. Here’s a sporting offer, Mr. Ffoulkes. I’ll accept 
your protege at your valuation if you will tell me candidly 
what that is.” 

“ I don’t mind doing that,” John said. “ You can take 
my word for it that he’s all right. In the first place he’s a 
gentleman, and when I say that, I don’t just mean that he 
knows how to eat properly and has a bath and no accent. I 
mean that he’s a gentleman in the truest sense of the word. 
Do you remember when I was dining here a fortnight ago 
that we got on to the subject of ethics, and somebody, 
myself I believe it was, propounded the theory that a starv¬ 
ing duke, if he found himself in a baker’s shop with nobody 
looking, wouldn’t hesitate to steal a loaf? Well, I was 
mistaken. Nine dukes out of ten might succumb but the 
tenth wouldn’t because his principles, or, if you like the 
word better, his gentlemanly instincts would prevail. 
Roger’s the tenth duke.” 

“ You’re very sure of him and I like you for defending 
him but your theory requires putting into practice before 
it can have any real value,” Miss Bellamy said. 

“ It has been.” 

“ What! Do you mean to tell me that that experience 
has literally been Mr. Dibden’s? You can’t expect me to 
swallow that. Come now!” 

“ A parallel experience has been his,” insisted John stub¬ 
bornly. “ He was starving and he picked up an ornament 
of some considerable value the sale of which (and he could 
easily have disposed of it without risk) would have provided 
him with not one loaf only but hundreds. The ornament 
had not been missed; there was no one by to interfere; he 
had only to walk away and say nothing. But, although 



174 


A CERTAIN MAN 


sorely tempted his gentlemanly instincts prevailed and com¬ 
pelled him, against his will, to restore it to its owner. That’s 
why I call him the tenth duke.” 

“ The owner being Biddy,” remarked Miss Bellamy in 
tones of certainty. “ I begin to see daylight, Mr. Ffoulkes, 
though I still am at a loss to understand why the whole 
affair has been treated in such a mysterious manner. 
However, that’s neither here nor there. I’ll do my share, 
though if Mr. Dibden refuses to confide in me I don’t very 
well see how I can prevent him from acting in whatever way 
he chooses. At the best I can only indicate the road he 
should follow. I can’t take him by the scruff of the neck 
and drag him down it against his will.” 

“No. I certainly can’t imagine him responding to violent 
treatment,” agreed John. “And yet I don’t know! I’ve 
given it to him pretty straight from the shoulder when 
occasion required and it seems to have answered.” 

“ Well, I can only do my best but please understand that 
I accept no responsibility in the matter,” said Miss Bellamy 
decidedly. 

“ I don’t ask you to. I merely ask you to stand by and 
give him a helping hand if necessary,” said John. 

“ I will if he stretches out his first. I’m not going to 
grab at him.” 

“ To change the subject, how’s Mrs. Panter?” enquired 
John. 

“ Much as usual,” responded Miss Bellamy tartly. “ But 
you’ll be able to judge for yourself if you don’t hurry away 
after lunch.” 

“ Why? Is she coming here?” 

“She’s calling for Biddy at three to drive down to Rane- 
lagh with her. Not having a car of her own she finds 
Biddy’s extremely useful.” 

“ What a lark,” said John. “ We’ll introduce Roger to 
her.” 

The sound of the gong for lunch booming through the 
house interrupted any further conversation. The two on 



A CERTAIN MAN 


175 


the balcony came in and the whole party proceeded down¬ 
stairs to the dining room. During the course of the meal 
John caught Miss Bellamy more than once looking specu¬ 
latively at Roger as though she were trying to fill up the 
gaps in the somewhat sparse narrative of the events which 
had led up to his presence at Biddy’s table, but otherwise 
she simply treated him as she would have treated any other 
guest in the house whom she was meeting for the first time. 

Conversation was a little difficult because Roger had lost 
touch with the current topics of the day and had been 
debarred for so long from either seeing popular plays or 
reading the books which everyone was discussing that to 
talk of them was to leave him out of it altogether so 
they sought refuge in the future, making plans for the 
projected visit to Cornwall, dwelling on the charms of the 
coast scenery and enlarging generally on the delights of the 
free and easy life led by those dwelling in that favoured 
spot, until John was thoroughly homesick and even Biddy 
expressed a longing for the time to come when she would 
find herself once more in the old familiar surroundings. 

“ What fun when you come down for your holiday, John,” 
she said, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “ Think of 
the walk along the top of the cliffs to Ferrier Bay and 
Dunning Porth.” 

“ And beyond to Randall Stairs and Hinxman Head with 
that view right down the coast to St. Ives,” chimed in John 
ecstatically. 

“ Oh, don’t let’s talk about it. It makes me squirm.” 

“ We’re evidently outside the pale, Mr. Dibden,” 
observed Miss Bellamy. “ We’re mere novices. I don’t 
think it’s fair that you should have six weeks’ advantage 
over me. You’ll be an experienced squirmer by the time I 
arrive and will be able to look down on me from the 
superior altitudes in which you blissfully wriggle.” 

“ How priceless,” Roger said. “ But of course I’ll give 
you tips. I might even arrange for a few lessons at a 
reduced price under the circumstances.” 



176 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“ Don’t pay any attention to them, Biddy,” John admon¬ 
ished her. “ They’re trying to get a rise out of us so let’s 
treat them with the contempt they deserve. Poor things! 
We must remember that they don’t know any better.” 

“ It’s pathetic, isn’t it?” Biddy said. “ Let’s go upstairs 
to the drawing room and sulk.” 

It was all rather childish and silly nonsense but it just 
suited the slightly awkward situation in which they found 
themselves and helped Roger to find his feet and slip quite 
naturally into his proper place again, and by the time they 
got upstairs once more he had almost forgotten he had ever 
been in the house in any other capacity than that of 
acknowledged guest. 

The next hour passed so pleasantly and rapidly that it 
came upon them as a surprise when Barnby threw open the 
door and announced Mrs. Panter. 

That lady paused on the threshold for an instant when 
she saw the two men but recovering herself immediately 
advanced into the room, embraced Biddy effusively, shook 
hands reservedly with Miss Bellamy, bowed graciously to 
John, then hesitated, obviously waiting for an explanation of 
Roger’s presence. These strange young men, who were 
unknown in the circles in which she moved, and who fol¬ 
lowed one another in such rapid succession in Biddy’s draw¬ 
ing room were a little disconcerting. John had been 
accounted for on a previous occasion but Roger still re¬ 
mained to be elucidated. Her practiced eye told her at a 
glance that he was different from the usual run of men 
whom she was accustomed to meet in Biddy’s house and 
she was vaguely disquieted by the knowledge. She had, as 
it were, staked her claim on Biddy on her brother’s behalf 
and, if Biddy herself was ignorant of the fact, the youths 
in her set were not and they, from some extraordinary code 
of honour of their own, respected the claim. But these stray 
young men who came from nobody knew where, and on 
whom Mrs. Panter was unable to keep a watchful eye, were 
potential disturbers of the peace and therefore suspects. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


177 


Roger was introduced in the usual form and Mrs. Panter 
acknowledged the introduction in an offhand manner which 
forcibly reminded John of the reception accorded to him by 
the lady at their first meeting a fortnight ago. 

“Aren’t you ready, Biddy?” she asked with a note of 
impatience in her tones. “ It’s three o’clock, you know, and 
we arranged to start punctually.” 

That she was taking Biddy away from her guests didn’t 
trouble her in the least. She couldn’t allow a trifle like 
that to interfere with her plans. Young men, especially 
nondescript young men, who came to luncheon and didn’t 
know when to go must be shown plainly and without com¬ 
punction that they had out-stayed their welcome even 
though it was not her own house and they were not her own 
guests. She wasn’t going to stand idly by and see dear 
Biddy put upon. 

“ I’m awfully sorry, Carrie,” Biddy said apologetically. 
“ You see we were making plans for Cornwall and I never 
noticed how the time was slipping by.” 

“ Plans for Cornwall? What plans for Cornwall?” asked 
Mrs. Panter suspiciously. It was the first she had heard of 
them. 

“ Why the doctor’s ordered Belle there and Mr. Ffoulkes 
knows of a house to let at his home, and funnily enough Mr. 
Dibden is going to the same place the day after tomorrow, 
so, when Mr. Ffoulkes goes home for his holiday we shall all 
meet there,” explained Biddy. 

This was even worse than Mrs. Panter had feared and she 
very nearly lost her head and said so but she managed to 
pull herself together in the nick of time and murmur a 
suitable platitude. 

“ Where is your home, Mr. Ffoulkes?” she enquired 
sweetly, feeling it might be well to know with a view to 
future emergencies. 

“ About a half mile out of Hine,” John responded with 
what politeness he could muster. 

“ Hine. Really,” said Mrs. Panter, making a mental note 



178 


A CERTAIN MAN 


of the name. “ Isn’t that the place one sees photographs of 
at Paddington?” 

“ One used to. I rather think they took them away 
during the war. I suppose they thought the Germans 
would be unable to resist its attractions if they occupied 
London so they’d better hide them,” John told her. 

“ Dear me! If it’s as attractive as all that I must pay 
it a visit one of these days. What’s the best hotel?” 

John gave her the desired information with a sense of 
guilt which was justified when Biddy and Mrs. Panter had 
driven off and he and Roger were bidding Miss Bellamy 
adieu. 

“ Now you’ve torn it,” she said scornfully. Miss Bel¬ 
lamy, after years of self-repression in the vulgar tongue 
inculcated by a sense of duty to those who looked to her to 
impart the elegancies of the English language to their off¬ 
spring, had deliberately let herself go when the need of 
restraint was past and was an adept at picking up and 
applying intelligently any slang she happened to come 
across to the stupefaction of her listeners. 

“ What did you want to go and give her the name of a 
hotel for?” 

“ How could I help it?” John said indignantly. “ She’d 
have found out for herself if I hadn’t told her.” 

“ Well I suppose she would,” Miss Bellamy acquiesced 
grudgingly. “ We must just make the best of a bad job, 
that’s all.” 

“ Perhaps she won’t come,” suggested John hopefully. 

“ I don’t think,” retorted Miss Bellamy laconically. 



CHAPTER XII 


Roger started off for Cornwall on the Saturday morning 
feeling rather like a small boy going to a new school. 

John had not been able to come to Paddington to see him 
off, as he would have liked to do, so their farewells took 
place in the little sitting room in Eddis Street where their 
first momentous interview had happened. 

It was hard to realise that it was only just over a fortnight 
since that afternoon when they two and Biddy had sat at 
tea there and conversed labouriously with one another in a 
futile endeavour to make an extraordinary situation appear 
ordinary, but in friendship, as in love, time is of no account 
and its strength is not to be reckoned by days or hours. 
The two who had been brought together under such peculiar 
circumstances were content to acknowledge that each of 
them recognised in the other the complement of himself, and 
they did not seek to reduce it to terms of mensuration. 

Perhaps if they had met under different conditions their 
affection for one another would not have matured so rapidly 
but, as it was, Roger had been more or less forced to un¬ 
burden himself to this man who had dragged him out of the 
mire and in the laying bare of his own soul he had learned 
to understand John’s in a way which months of casual 
acquaintanceship would not have taught him. 

And John, on his side, was strangely drawn towards this 
young man who had walked into his life so unexpectedly. 
The fact that there was a difference of eight years between 
their respective ages had not prevented a very real cam¬ 
araderie springing to birth. 

John had, all his life, been singularly bereft of friends of 
his own sex. An only child, he had never known what it 
was to possess a brother and at school and college though 
he had scores of comrades whom he had liked well enough 

179 


180 


A CERTAIN MAN 


he had never found a Pythias to whom he was Damon. 
Certainly there had been special companions with whom 
he had exchanged confidences and stamps but somehow 
these companionships had not lasted. There had been a cer¬ 
tain lack of spontaneity about them. They had mostly 
been the outcome of environment backed up by concession 
to custom. It was the thing to have an alter ego so John 
had cast around as occasion required until he found some¬ 
one sufficiently sympathetic to fill the post but these suc¬ 
cessive friendships had resembled a marriage of convenience 
rather than a union of souls and, one by one, had died a 
natural death. 

But in his feelings toward Roger, John recognised a driv¬ 
ing force which his other friendships had wanted. For one 
thing, being Roger’s senior gave him a sense of protective¬ 
ness towards the younger man and, for another, Roger’s 
state of utter loneliness appealed to him. And above all 
there was that intuition of mutual affection which has 
existed since the days of David and Jonathan and doubtless 
had its counterpart long before that. Their parting had 
been typically British. Where two Frenchmen would have 
fallen on one another’s necks and embraced with tears they 
had merely shaken hands rather awkwardly and talked 
about the times of trains and the convenience of their being 
a luncheon car on this particular one. 

Mrs. Ottoway had displayed far more sentiment than 
John at Roger’s departure. She insisted on regarding him 
as a sort of Cinderella who, directly he had left the shelter 
of her roof, would shed his fine feathers and find himself 
again in the ragged garments he had worn when she first set 
eyes on him and there was even a hint of reproach in her 
manner towards John as being the one responsible for his 
going away. 

Her feelings expended themselves in preparing endless 
packages of food for Roger to comfort himself with on the 
journey. A couple of hours in a train was, to her, an 
event. Seven hours was an epoch! She seemed to have 



A CERTAIN MAN 


181 


an idea that Roger, at the end of so much travelling, would 
inevitably be landed in some desert spot in which the 
decencies of life would be conspicuous by their absence and 
the only consolation she could derive was in the reflection 
that, having experienced the hardships of the trenches, he 
would be inured, to a certain extent, to the worse hardships 
of the coast of Cornwall, which of course was quite unrea¬ 
sonable considering she was perfectly aware that John’s 
home was there and that every time he went there for his 
holiday he performed exactly the same journey. But then 
John had a mother with, presumably, a roof over her head 
to afford him shelter, whereas, from the conversations she 
had overheard between John and Roger, she had gathered 
the impression that the latter was setting out to spend a mis¬ 
erable existence in a water-logged hut perched on a rock 
out at sea. 

John had just said, “ Well, good-bye, old chap. See 
you when I come down. Give my love to my mother and 
Aunt Sybil.” To which Roger had responded, “ So long, 
old man, and — thanks awfully.” 

That had been all and then the taxi had driven off leav¬ 
ing John standing on the doorstep looking after it with an 
assumed air of indifference which gave no indication of the 
real feelings beneath the surface, while Mrs. Ottoway 
retired to her own domain sniffing in a manner that bade 
fair to out-rival Amelia and spent the rest of the morning 
singing “ Fierce raged the tempest o’er the deep ” in such 
a lugubrious voice that John was nearly driven distracted 
and retaliated by whistling airs from “ Pinafore ” to try 
and drown it. 

Roger, meanwhile, being borne swiftly along through the 
sun-bathed country towards his new employer and the 
mollusca of the Cornish coast, was endeavouring, though 
without much success, to imagine what his life would be 
for the next few months. 

As far as he could make out he would be expected to turn 
himself into a kind of amphibious creature spending his 



182 


A CERTAIN MAN 


waking hours in pools and holes in the rocks and only 
returning to dry land for the purpose of sleeping. He had 
visions of sitting waist-deep in water, with a typewriter 
balanced on a ledge in front of him, jotting down notes on 
the manners and customs of shell-fish society, as dictated 
to him by Mr. Peal in a striped bathing suit. It would be 
rather like that occasion when he had been home on leave 
and had run across his colonel in the Turkish Baths in 
Jermyn Street and had great searchings of heart as to 
whether a superior officer minus his clothes would insist, 
under the circumstances, on supporting the dignity of the 
British Army and expect to be addressed as “Sir.” Until 
that moment Roger never realised the debt a colonel owed 
to his uniform. This particular one was, in the flesh, singu¬ 
larly wanting in dignity, and meeting one of his subalterns 
on the common grounds of humanity shrank, or, since he 
was inclined to stoutness, it might be more correct to say 
expanded, into comparative insignificance. 

Roger felt it would be difficult to treat an employer clad 
in a shooting coat and a striped bathing suit with the def¬ 
erence due to his exalted position and he trusted Mr. Peal 
was not a stickler for etiquette. 

Exeter and Plymouth were passed and at last the express 
reached Gillett where the through carriage for Hine was 
attached to the slow train which puffed and panted and 
labouriously climbed the steep ascent which wound its 
way up from the Goodson valley to Sully Moor, with its 
huge white dumps of china clay standing up against the 
blue sky behind, looking, at a distance, like giant tents. 

Hine at last, and Roger, although it brought him to the 
last stage of his journey to the unknown, welcomed the 
release from the cramped confines of a crowded railway 
carriage. 

He descended to the platform and looked about him with 
curiosity. He had been told that he would be met at the 
station but he had no idea who would be the one to welcome 
him, whether Mr. Peal himself or a substitute. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


183 


He was not long left in doubt, for, before he reached the 
exit, a voice from behind said over his shoulder, “ Mr. 
Dibden?” and turning he beheld an extraordinary looking 
individual dressed in a baggy suit of ginger colour, very 
much faded and stained, a shirt of army gray flannel with a 
turn down collar of the same material, an obviously made-up 
tie of black silk which, not being properly pulled up, hung 
limply down showing a gap of about an inch between it and 
the collar stud, and, perched on the very top of his sandy 
hair, one of those weird caps of an obsolete pattern which 
used to be known as deer-stalkers. Large gold-rimmed 
spectacles covered a pair of watery blue eyes and a drooping 
straggly moustache hid the mouth. The first impression the 
face gave was of weakness bordering on imbecility but, in 
spite of that, there was something so friendly and cordial 
about it that it disarmed criticism. 

“ My name’s Peal,” continued the owner of the face, 
after Roger had acknowledged his identity, in tones so 
humble and deprecating that the younger man felt almost 
inclined to tell him not to worry about it. He held out a 
hesitating hand as he spoke, then withdrew it hurriedly, 
before Roger had time to take it, as though he were afraid 
of appearing too presumptious, and, instead, seized hold of 
his new secretary’s suit case. 

“ Pray allow me,” he said in a voice of such entreaty that 
Roger, who had at first protested, graciously permitted his 
employer to carry his luggage for him while he himself 
walked unencumbered. 

It was certainly a reversal of the usual order of things, 
Roger reflected, as he followed Mr. Peal down the platform. 
He had made up his mind to the acceptance of a subservient 
position in which he would be at the beck and call of one 
who would issue orders which he would have to obey, and 
he was quite prepared to efface himself as much as possible 
when his services were not required, yet here was the one 
in question servilely acting as baggage carrier, while he 
marched behind like a gentleman of leisure. 



184 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“ I’ve got a jingle,” Mr. Peal announced, when they had 
passed the barrier. 

For one wild moment Roger imagined that a jingle must 
be some rare kind of shell-fish which Mr. Peal had dis¬ 
covered, so triumphant were the tones in which the 
announcement was made, and he was on the point of 
embarking upon a congratulatory speech when he realised 
that a jingle was not a denizen of the shore but a conveyance 
in the shape of a governess-cart which was destined to carry 
him and his belongings to Porth Ros, and he breathed a 
sigh of relief that he had not, at the first outset, betrayed his 
crass ignorance on the subject of molluscs. 

The driver, Mr. Peal, and Roger, packed in, with Roger’s 
bag occupying the vacant seat, and off they started. 

Leaving the station approach they swung to the right, in 
the opposite direction to the main body of the town, and 
drove along a broad road with the sea sparkling at the 
foot of the high cliffs on their left, and, on their right, a 
row of semi-detached villas, mostly private hotels and 
boarding establishments until, about a quarter of a mile 
beyond the last house, they turned inland. 

“ I thought your house was close to the sea,” Roger ven¬ 
tured to remark. 

“ We are only making a detour,” Mr. Peal assured him 
anxiously. “ We go off to the left again presently. The 
Rise is at the bottom of the hill leading to the Porth,” he 
added with unconscious Hibernicism. 

And sure enough, before they had gone a mile, the jingle 
took a byroad to the left and, after going down a steep hill 
between high hedge rows, reached the gate of The Rise. 

The house stood on a kind of plateau, a gaunt square 
building of no architectural merit but possessing an air of 
homeliness which helped to redeem its ugliness. 

They walked up the short drive, Mr. Peal once again 
insisting on playing the part of porter, to Roger’s extreme 
discomfiture, and long before they arrived at the front door 



A CERTAIN MAN 


185 


it was opened by an aged retainer whom Roger recognised 
from John’s description as the butler, Harcourt. 

If Mr. Peal’s attire was peculiar, the servant’s was, 
although shabby and old-fashioned, exactly correct in every 
detail. He was very old; so old and tottery that Roger 
wondered he didn’t fall over. He was bald, except for a 
few white hairs carefully arranged to spread over as much 
of his shiny cranium as possible, and his toothless gums 
had caused his mouth to sink in until it was nothing but 
a recess below his beaky nose. 

Roger had had some qualms as to the reception he was 
likely to meet with from the trio of ancients who formed the 
nucleus of the establishment, and he was therefore rather 
relieved when the butler welcomed him with a cavernous 
grin which irresistibly reminded him of the spasms which 
convulse the face of an infant when it is suffering from 
wind. 

He was ushered up to a bedroom on the first floor. It was 
furnished in early Victorian style. A four-post bed, hung 
with curtains of maroon damask, faced the window. The 
dressing table had a valance of spotted muslin over a pink 
foundation hanging round it and reaching to the floor with 
a massive mahogany mirror surmounting it and occupying 
most of the top surface. An enormous marble-topped 
double washstand stood in one corner, an escritoire in 
another, and the chairs were evidently the surplus of a 
dining room suite upholstered in velvet of a hideous browny- 
green hue. A Brussells carpet, with red roses sprawling 
over a drab ground, covered the floor and the walls were 
adorned with a white paper plentifully sprinkled with gold 
stars. Curtains, to match those on the bed, hung at the 
one window of which the room boasted and the only pic¬ 
ture was a print of “ Dignity and Impudence,” which deco¬ 
rated the space above the fireplace. 

It was not what you might call an exhilarating room but 
it had an air of solid comfort about it which Roger appre¬ 
ciated and when he went across to the window and saw 



186 


A CERTAIN MAN 


the view from it he drew in his breath with a gasp of 
delight for there, before his eyes, was a scene of such beauty 
and grandeur that it almost seemed too good to be true. 

The tide was out but the Porth was a stretch of golden 
sand shining in the sunlight. On the further side of it the 
headland, rosy with sea-pinks, glowed like a lambent jewel 
against the background of restless blue-green water which 
showed above it, while far away in the distance, a steamer 
appeared on the skyline, its trail of smoke floating out 
behind like a gray veil, as it ploughed through the ocean 
bearing its freight homewards. The steamer gave just the 
requisite touch of realism to the picture, linking it up with 
the work-a-day world. It seemed at once to make the 
beauty of the sea and sky, of granite cliffs and amethystine 
headland, a personal possession in which all mankind had a 
share, and brought within the grasp of intellect that which 
otherwise might have appeared too remotely sublime to be 
fully understood by the human mind. 

It was Harcourt who broke the spell. 

“ If I may have your key, Sir, I’ll get out your things,” 
he said. 

“ What time’s dinner?” Roger asked. 

“ Eight o’clock, Sir. It’s half past six now.” 

“ Does — does Mr. Peal dress?” 

“ Well, Sir. It depends on the tide,” was the surprising 
reply. 

“ The tide!” exclaimed Roger. 

“ Mr. Peal stops down on the beach till the last possible 
moment, Sir, if the rocks are get-at-able,” explained the old 
servant. “ But Mrs. Ffoulkes and Miss Gunning are dining 
here. To meet you, Sir. They’re anxious for the latest 
news of Mr. John.” 

“ Miss Gunning is Mrs. Ffoulkes’ sister, I suppose?” 

“ Yes, Sir.” 

Roger left Harcourt to unpack for him and descending 
the stairs made his way out of doors and down to the shore. 

The Porth, now that he saw it from the level of the sands, 



A CERTAIN MAN 


187 


was a deep inlet with promontories running out on either 
hand into the sea. That on the left was evidently the 
grounds of a private house while that on the opposite side 
appeared to be available for public use for there were scat¬ 
tered groups of people sauntering about on it. Across the 
mouth of the bay the heavy Atlantic rollers were breaking 
on the shore, one suceeding another with such rapidity 
that their white crests formed a seemingly unbroken line 
blotting out the horizon and, where they struck the rocks, 
sending up a shower of spray like diamonds. Gulls circled 
in the air and clustered in groups at the edge of the 
incoming tide, uttering strident cries and piercing the 
roar of the waves with warnings of the approach of an 
enemy. 

For the first time Roger dimly comprehended John’s sick 
longing for the sights and sounds of this place when he 
compared it with the sights and sounds of the great city 
in which he had suffered so much and in which he had been 
so near to destruction. 

Less than three weeks ago he had been a wanderer upon 
the face of the earth; an Ishmael with his hand against 
every man and every man’s hand against him. Now he was 
one of the elect, the heir to a more wonderful heritage than 
he could ever have imagined — a heritage of illimitable 
spaces, of boundless ocean tracks canopied with blue skies 
and feathery white clouds, of towering cliffs and golden 
sands, of green fields and country lanes where the foxgloves 
raised purple spires heavenwards. 

He could have shouted out loud with the ecstacy that 
poured over him like a flood; indeed only the near presence 
of a severe looking old lady, unsuitably attired in a bonnet 
and beaded mantle, restrained him. He felt she would never 
understand if he did such a thing and would merely regard 
him with deep misgivings as to his sanity or sobriety. She 
was so entirely out of harmony with her surroundings that 
the vision of her sitting bolt upright on a camp stool rather 
damped his ardour. He felt inclined to go up to her and 



188 


A CERTAIN MAN 


say, “ Are you aware, Madam, that you are trespassing?” 
only he knew she wouldn’t see the joke. 

So he checked his impulse to behave like a riotous school¬ 
boy and retraced his steps to the house in a decorous man¬ 
ner as befitted one who was about to engage in scientific 
research. 

He dressed for dinner with an accurate care for the most 
minute details of his toilette and with a sense of well-being 
which had for long been foreign to him. 

It seemed absurd to realise that the clothes he was put¬ 
ting on were the very first grown up evening ones he had 
ever possessed but so it was. He had gone straight from 
school into the army and after his demobilization had been 
too hard up to be able to afford a luxury for which he would 
have very little use, so it was excusable in him to examine 
himself with a certain amount of interest in the glass when 
he had completed his change of attire. 

It was only a dinner jacket he was wearing, it is true, 
but he found the result eminently satisfactory, though he 
was not, as a rule, given to self-adulation, and he went 
down stairs with a new-born confidence begotten of the 
consciousness that at any rate he looked presentable. Mrs. 
Ffoulkes and her sister had already arrived and Mr. Peal was 
entertaining them with an exposition on oyster beds, when 
Roger entered the room, to which the two ladies were listen¬ 
ing with an air of strained attention. 

They were so utterly unlike one another in appearance 
that it was almost impossible to believe they were related. 

Mrs. Ffoulkes was short and stout and comfortable look¬ 
ing while Miss Gunning was tall and thin and angular. 

The former was attired in a black silk dress and on her 
head was a widow’s cap with long streamers upon which 
she invariably sat and which had to be extricated from 
beneath her; the latter wore a gown of some thin material, 
also black, which was finished off round the neck with a 
ruching of white net. A small v-shaped opening at the front 
hinted with the utmost delicacy at decolletage and produced 



A CERTAIN MAN 


189 


an effect of compromise. It conceded, without overstepping 
the bounds of decorum in the slightest degree. 

Mrs. Ffoulkes, who never exerted herself more than was 
absolutely necessary, extended a plump hand in Roger’s 
direction as he entered and held it poised in mid-air until 
he crossed to where she sat, in a well-padded armchair, and 
took it. 

“ Welcome to Porth Ros, Mr. Dibble,” she said gra¬ 
ciously. “ My son has told me of you.” 

Roger hesitated, wondering whether to correct her per¬ 
version of his name, but, deciding that it was really of no 
consequence, let it pass. 

“ Thank you very much, Mrs. Ffoulkes,” he said grate¬ 
fully. “ Your son has been very kind to me.” 

“ Dear John,” said Mrs. Ffoulkes comfortably. “ How 
did he seem?” 

“ Very well indeed,” Roger assured her. 

“ That’s all right,” she remarked complaisantly. “ It 
makes me so anxious to think of him in London in this 
sweltering heat.” 

All the same her anxiety wasn’t so great as to distract 
her attention from a spot of grease she had discovered on 
her dress at which she scrabbled with the nail of her fore¬ 
finger while she enquired after her son’s health. It was Miss 
Gunning, Roger noticed, who seemed the more relieved of 
the two to hear that John was well and he wondered 
whether, in spite of her gaunt weather-beaten appearance, 
she was not, after all, the softer-hearted of the two. 

Mrs. Ffoulkes was one of those happily constituted people 
who, provided they are comfortable themselves, don’t 
trouble about other people. She spent the major portion of 
her time in a softly-cushioned armchair from the depths of 
which she complained of the strenuous existence she led and 
of how she never had a moment to call her own, although, 
since her sister ran the household and undertook all the 
business correspondence and mended the linen and darned 
the stockings for both of them, besides fulfilling any social 



190 


A CERTAIN MAN 


duties and parochial obligations which devolved upon them, 
it was hard to say where the strenuous existence came in. 
Having, as a young woman, suffered from a weak chest she 
had gained an altogether undeserved reputation for delicacy 
which was not without its compensations since it enabled 
her to breakfast in bed every morning and not come down 
stairs till mid-day, have a fire in her bedroom, odd cups of 
soup or hot milk or arrowroot brought to her at frequent 
intervals, and to refuse any invitations which she fancied 
would bore her, though if she happened to be asked out 
to anything she thought would be entertaining, she quickly 
discovered that a little stimulus was needed to “ take her out 
of herself.” 

Her delicacy had become such a tradition that no one 
ever thought of questioning it and her greatest joy in life 
was to sit surrounded by a ring of sympathising friends and 
listen to their admiring plaudits on her marvelous fortitude 
in rising superior to her bodily ailments. She would go 
miles and put herself to any amount of personal inconven¬ 
ience in order to achieve this object and when, in addition, 
she was patted on the back for doing what she thoroughly 
enjoyed her cup of contentment was filled to overflowing. 
It is always pleasant to be commended for an action which 
is also a source of gratification to oneself. 

On this occasion she had condescended to dine with Mr. 
Peal partly because a stranger always excited her curiosity 
and whetted her appetite for enlisting a fresh recruit into 
the ranks of those who regarded her as one bravely struggling 
against adversity and partly because, although she had un¬ 
bounded confidence in John’s ability to look after himself 
and did not really worry herself in the slightest degree about 
his health, she was genuinely fond of him and was anxious 
to meet one who had come straight from sojourning under 
his roof and had seen him as recently as that morning. No 
doubt if her son had been ill she would have been upset 
but as he was not her enquiries about him were merely 



A CERTAIN MAN 


191 


perfunctory ones the answers to which she knew before 
they were given. 

Her sister, on the other hand, who never gave her own 
well-being a moment’s thought, allowed her imagination full 
play where those she cared for were concerned, and espe¬ 
cially when she was not on the spot to mark their looks and 
assure herself that their appetites were good and that they 
were displaying no symptoms of immediate dissolution. 

During the hot weather she invariably worked herself into 
a state of morbid terror as to the effect the heat might be 
having on her nephew. She saw him, in her mind’s eye, a 
pale languid wreck of his former self, crawling feebly round 
the courts and alleys of the East End (she refused to believe 
that the whole of John’s parish was not composed of courts 
and alleys in spite of his assurances to the contrary), an 
easy prey to the first germ that he might encounter; faint¬ 
ing in church in the middle of the service from exhaustion, 
and otherwise comporting himself in a manner about as far 
removed from the truth as it well could be. Therefore 
to get a report of John first hand from one who had come 
direct from him was a very real comfort to his aunt and 
meant that, for tonight at least, she need not lie awake 
picturing to herself all kinds of disasters. 

She asked no questions herself. That was the mother’s 
prerogative and if Mrs. Ffoulkes was satisfied to let the 
matter end with the bare statement that John was very 
well it was not for her to pursue the subject further. She 
knew what was due to her sister. 

“ So you’re going to write another book about crabs and 
things, dear Mr. Peal,” Mrs. Ffoulkes said vaguely to her 
host when, dinner over, they returned to the drawing room. 
“ And Mr. Dibble is going to help you. How very inter¬ 
esting and how delightful to be able to stand about for hours 
in the water without feeling any ill effects. Such a nice 
hobby.” 

If Mr. Peal had been anything but the mildest of men he 
would, at this point, have exploded with wrath to hear what 



192 


A CERTAIN MAN 


he considered his life’s mission described as a “ nice hobby.” 

However, being what he was, he only got purple in the 
face with emotion and blinked at Mrs. Ffoulkes as though 
she were some strange thing which he could hardly credit 
even with the testimony of his own eyes. 

“ I’m not proposing to write a book about crabs and 
things,” he said at last, when he had gained sufficient self- 
control to speak. “ The volume upon which I am about to 
engage deals exclusively with univalves and more especially 
with Fissurellidae. It will also embody my little pamphlet 
on the Buccinum Undatum which I published last year.” 

Mrs. Ffoulkes, not being concerned with the volume in 
question and having nothing to lose by a display of igno¬ 
rance, put the question point blank which Roger was long¬ 
ing but had not dared to ask. 

“ What’s a Fizzy what-you-may-call-it?” she enquired 
vaguely. 

“ A limpet, Madam, a limpet,” Mr. Peal informed her 
with the nearest approach to irritation that Roger had yet 
seen in him. 

“ Oh, is that all?” observed Mrs. Ffoulkes in some disap¬ 
pointment. She had expected something in the nature of a 
sea-serpent at the very least. 

“ And quite enough, too,” declared Mr. Peal emphati¬ 
cally. To sit calmly by and listen without protest to this 
disparagement of one of his beloved mollusca was beyond 
his powers of endurance, and he forthwith plunged into an 
abstruse and highly scientific account of the limpet of which 
not one of his unwilling audience of three understood a 
word, so bristling was it with technicalities. 

Roger, with a deep conviction of his own unworthiness, 
was thankful when ten o’clock came and the two ladies rose 
to make their adieux. 

“ You must come and see me,” Mrs. Ffoulkes said gra¬ 
ciously, as she bade him good night. “ And I’ll show you 
some photographs of John when he was a baby,” she added 
as an inducement. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


193 


“ I should like to see them/’ Roger said with studied 
politeness. “ As a matter of fact I was coming along tomor¬ 
row morning if you didn’t mind. Your son told me I could 
borrow his bathing suit until he came home.” 

“ I’m sure I don’t know where it is,” remarked Mrs. 
Ffoulkes hopelessly. 

“ I do, Kathleen,” interposed her sister hastily. “ What 
time will you come for it, Mr. Dibden? I’ll have it ready 
for you.” 

Roger looked at Mr. Peal uncertainly. He was not sure 
yet at what hours his employer would require him and he 
was anxious not to start off by creating an impression of 
too much independence. 

Mr. Peal caught the look and its meaning and patted 
Roger on the shoulder in a deprecating manner which con¬ 
veyed its own apology for the liberty he was presuming to 
take. 

“ Your time is mine, my dear Mr. Dibden,” he said, with 
the air of one studying the convenience of an important 
client. It reminded Roger of an eastern monarch offering 
the half of his kingdom to a powerful magician whom it was 
politic to keep in with. 

“ If I called about half-past nine?” he suggested. 

“That’ll do very well,” Miss Gunning said. “You know 
the house? But of course you don’t. How should you? 
It’s the small gray house on the further side of the Porth 
where the road bends. Sands Mound is the name of it.” 

“ Ask for me if you have to enquire,” said Mrs. Ffoulkes 
majestically. 

“ But you won’t be up, Kathleen,” Mrs. Gunning re¬ 
minded her. 

“Possibly not, Sybil, but the house is mine even when 
I’m in bed,” said her sister firmly. “ If you ask for Sands 
Mound, Mr. — er — Dibson, you’re as likely as not to be 
directed to The Windy Mount which is a house nearer this 
way. Why Mr. Marchant chose to call his house by a name 
so similar to that of mine was a thing I could never under- 



194 


A CERTAIN MAN 


stand. As I warned him at the time it would be, the result 
is endless confusion. Mr. Marchant was a charming man 
but he always insisted on having his own way and refused to 
listen to my advice. However he’s dead so I suppose I 
ought to let bygones be bygones.” 

She spoke rather as if she considered that her late neigh¬ 
bour had taken an unfair advantage of her in removing 
himself to a sphere where she was prohibited from saying 
too candidly what she really thought of him, and she walked 
out of the room with her hands folded in front of her in the 
attitude of one fully conscious of her superiority to the rest 
of humanity and as though she were already rehearsing 
her part in the heavenly pageant. 

Mr. Peal returned from showing his visitors out with an 
air of the most obvious relief which he made no effort to 
conceal. 

“ Very charming but sadly lacking in intelligence,” he 
observed to Roger as he came back into the room. “ I 
sometimes almost doubt if Mrs. Ffoulkes knows the dif¬ 
ference between a Maia Squinado and the Cancer Panurus.” 

As Roger didn’t either, he preserved a discreet silence on 
the subject and waited anxiously for the next remark in the 
hopes that it might give him some clue. 

He suddenly felt dispirited and profoundly conscious of his 
own abysmal ignorance about all the things which he sup¬ 
posed Mr. Peal would expect him to be up in and he had 
visions of being sent away at the end of a week in disgrace. 
His mood of exaltation had dropped off him and a cloud of 
depression had usurped its place, enveloping his soul in a 
thick mist through which no ray of hope could cast its 
beams. Perhaps Mr. Peal noticed something amiss for he 
laid his hand on Roger’s arm in the apologetic way which 
was so characteristic of him then drew it away again 
quickly as though he was afraid lest he had been too pre¬ 
sumptuous. 

“ I shall be very glad of your help — and of your com¬ 
pany,” he said. “ I’m not a very likely companion for a 



A CERTAIN MAN 


195 


young man, I fear, but you’ll have to overlook my short¬ 
comings in that respect and try to make the best of it. I 
daresay you’re tired after your journey and would like to 
be off to bed now.” 

“ I rather think I should, Sir,” Roger admitted, then, feel¬ 
ing he could not endure to wait for Mr. Peal to discover for 
himself his new secretary’s disqualifications for the post, 
determined to make a clean breast of it and get it over. 

“ I’m afraid I don’t know the difference between a Maia 
Squinado and a — the other thing you mentioned, either,” 
he confessed despondently. I don’t see what use I shall be 
to you. I oughtn’t to have come.” 

Mr. Peal returned his hand to Roger’s arm and this time 
kept it there. 

“ There’s no need for you to know,” he said reassuringly. 
“ I didn’t anticipate that you would. Only a fool would 
expect to gather grapes from thorns. Dear me! That 
sounds a little rude but it’s not intended to be. What I 
mean is that I am not so unreasonable as to imagine that an 
inland dweller could be in a position to make a study of the 
habits of marine animals. I infinitely prefer to work with 
someone entirely ignorant than with one possessing a little 
knowledge, or, for that matter, with one possessing a great 
deal of knowledge. The former is apt to apply his little 
knowledge erroneously, while the latter upsets me by argu¬ 
ing points which I have already decided.” 

“ But you said Mrs. Ffoulkes was sadly lacking in intelli¬ 
gence because she didn’t know the difference,” Roger said, 
only half comforted. 

“ Mrs. Ffoulkes has lived for certainly thirty-five years 
close beside the seashore with the opportunity to improve 
her mind if she chose to do so,” said Mr. Peal severely. 
“ She has not so chosen, therefore I described her in those 
terms. I place her in another category to you, Mr. Dib- 
den. Shall we go to bed now? We will defer discussing 
working arrangements until tomorrow.” 

And Roger, lying in bed that night, with his window open 



196 


A CERTAIN MAN 


to let in the sound of the waves crashing on the shore a 
stone’s throw away, his mind at ease, heaved a deep sigh 
of pure animal contentment at the surroundings in which 
he found himself and composed himself to sleep murmur¬ 
ing “ Maia Squinado ” despite the fact that he hadn’t the 
foggiest notion what a Maia Squinado might be. 



CHAPTER XIII 


Roger soon fell into the routine of work, which was not 
of a very strenuous nature. Mr. Peal spent the mornings, 
and very often the afternoons, in poking about the pools in 
the rocks or wading out to examine the shelving sides of the 
cliff below the Headland while they were still wet, in pur¬ 
suit of his scientific studies, and would return home with 
the pockets of the old shooting jacket he wore on these 
occasions bulging with specimens of all manner of strange 
crustaceans and molluscs which he proceeded to arrange in 
serried ranks on a deal table kept for that special purpose 
in his “ Aquarium.” 

Sometimes Roger would be given pages of manuscript 
covered with Mr. Peal’s crabbed and well-nigh indecipher¬ 
able handwriting to make a typed copy of and on such 
occasions he ploughed miserably through a morass of techni¬ 
cal words and phrases which, to him, were utterly meaning¬ 
less, and wasted a great deal of time looking up words in 
a glossary and trying to reconcile them with the scratches on 
the paper in front of him. This was when he was left 
alone, but that did not happen often. Usually he accom¬ 
panied his employer to the shore and, lightly clad in John’s 
bathing suit, stood shivering at his elbow while he dislodged 
unwilling shell-fish from their tenacious grip on the rocks 
and rattled out a string of erudite Latin names, none of 
which Roger had ever heard before, or if he had, had 
forgotten. 

After the first few days of warmth the weather had turned 
cold and wet and it was no sinecure to pass most of one’s 
time in the water trying to show an intelligent interest in 
what, to a prentice hand, appeared to be a quite ordinary 
whelk or limpet but which, according to Mr. Peal, was a 
member of the highest order of the Molluscan aristocracy. 
Mr. Peal himself seemed to be impervious to cold or damp 

197 


198 


A CERTAIN MAN 


and emerged from the sea at the end of an hour’s research 
as calm and collected as if he had just been for a walk on 
dry land, while Roger, shaking from head to foot with cold 
and misery, his lips blue, his body purple, had only one 
thought or desire which was to tear home and plunge into 
a hot bath. 

All the same he had never been so happy in his life before. 
The misery was entirely physical and he was quite willing 
to put up with that for the sake of the sense of freedom he 
experienced and for the pure joy of the surroundings in 
which he now found himself. The days might be gray. It 
might rain and blow, hail or sleet, but nothing could do 
away with the great violet cliffs, the swooping gulls flashing 
white against the slate sky, the starry masses of the sea-pinks 
which lodged themselves wherever a precarious foothold could 
be secured among the rocks and covered the Headland with 
a carpet that outrivaled the softest velvet pile that was ever 
fashioned by human fingers; the dim mysterious caverns 
boring their way through the hard granite into the depths 
of the earth or swelling out into sombre twilight chambers 
where the roar of the sea echoed round until it seemed as if 
the walls themselves were the background of a ghostly choir 
which, unseen by mortal eyes, sang a psean of triumph to 
the accompaniment of crashing cymbals and the booming 
notes of the shell trumpets of a Triton orchestra outside. 

There were hours when Roger could be off by himself and 
either walk along the sands, cool and soft beneath the 
pressure of his bare feet, or else, finding a sheltered nook, 
lie in a niche of the rock and watch the cloud-shadows on 
the surface of the ocean, shifting and changing as the 
clouds themselves shifted and changed with every passing 
minute. Emerald, sapphire, turquoise, topaz, amethyst: 
every jewel glittered and glistened each time the sun broke 
through until it looked as though the foundations of the 
Holy City had become detached and dropped from Heaven 
to float shorewards on the incoming tide. 

Sometimes, in the early morning, before there was any- 



A CERTAIN MAN 


199 


body about, he would slip out of his warm bed and, creeping 
softly out of the house so as not to disturb anybody, run 
down to the bay which lay on the further side of the Head¬ 
land and, stripping off his clothes, bathe in one of the deep 
pools among the rocks, then race across the intervening 
sands and plunge into the sea itself where he would dive 
through the breakers and swim out, the water lashing his 
naked breast and limbs, the spray smarting against his 
eyelids, his whole body tingling and glowing with the fierce 
effort of exercise. He would come back from these bathes 
with totally different sensations to those he was wont to 
experience after one of his wading expeditions with Mr. 
Peal. It used to seem as if his very soul had been taken 
out and washed and put back again; as if he had drunk at 
the fountain of youth or taken a draught of the elixir of 
life. The actual sun might not be shining at the moment, 
yet everything was steeped in sunshine. Later in the day 
he might, and probably would, inveigh against his fellow 
creatures who would come out from Hine and trail over the 
sands with hordes of noisy children whom they would ad¬ 
monish or encourage or ignore according to their mood and 
disposition; who would produce packets of sandwiches and 
picnic on the rocks and, when their meal was finished, would 
trail off again leaving in their wake the paper in which their 
repast had been wrapped, and ginger beer bottles and empty 
cigarette envelopes of a bilious yellow colour which 
attracted the eye towards them; but at this hour, while they 
were still invisible, safely hidden from view behind their 
bedroom curtains, he loved them all and felt tenderly 
towards their shortcomings, and sorry for them to be miss¬ 
ing the top of the morning. 

Most of his work with Mr. Peal was done in the evening 
when he would repair to the “ Aquarium ” with that gentle¬ 
man and take down the sentences as they were dictated to 
him with very hazy ideas as to their inner meaning and with 
sundry stoppages to get the correct spelling of some new 
beast of which he had never hitherto heard. 



200 


A CERTAIN MAN 


Mr. Peal was extraordinarily patient with him and never 
lost his temper or got put out when one of these interrup¬ 
tions occurred, as Roger felt he himself would have done 
under like circumstances and, as time went on, a very real 
affection sprang up between the two, and gradually and 
almost insensibly they drifted into a position resembling 
that of uncle and nephew rather than that of employer and 
employed, though the older man always treated the younger 
with somewhat exaggerated courtesy and never for a single 
instant, either by word or deed, allowed Roger to feel that 
he was a mere dependent. 

Mrs. Ffoulkes he saw little of, for she spent most of the 
time between her late uprising and her early going-to-bed 
sitting in an armchair in the drawing room of her small 
dwelling thinking out fresh symptoms with which to regale 
her next audience of sympathisers. She was a sort of per¬ 
verted follower of the Coue system, only, instead of saying 
“ better and better ” she said “ worse and worse ” with fre¬ 
quency and great gusto until her fancies became positive 
facts, at which stage she reversed the process and pro¬ 
nounced the correct formula with such complete faith in 
its efficacy that it never failed to effect a cure, especially if 
one of those invitations to any function which was likely 
to “ take her out of herself ” came to hand, in which case 
the cure was a speedy one. It was a form of mental inocu¬ 
lation which appealed to her. She always had to be worse 
before she was better. 

And if her sister saw through it she was too loyal to 
acknowledge the fact, but supported her through all her 
self-inflicted trials with an ardour worthy of a better cause. 

If Miss Gunning could have brought herself to do such an 
unladylike thing as slap Mrs. Ffoulkes the instant a new 
symptom appeared on the horizon she would probably have 
saved both of them a vast amount of trouble and expense, 
instead of which she assiduously went out of' her way to 
cultivate the particular maggot which her sister’s brain 
fancied at the moment and even (when that lady’s imagina- 



A CERTAIN MAN 


201 


tion boggled, as it sometimes did) supplied her with a few 
hitherto unthought-of symptoms to dally with. She was like 
a silly doting parent who, to keep her offspring quiet, gives 
it a box of vestas to play with and then is surprised when its 
pinafore is set alight. 

Ever since the two had started a joint household, which 
happened on the demise of the late Mr. Ffoulkes thirty-two 
years previously, Mrs. Ffoulkes had been a sleeping partner 
in the firm and, while drawing all the emoluments, had left 
her sister to do the work. Every now and then she swooped 
down and asserted her rights but usually she was content to 
leave everything in Miss Gunning’s capable hands, though 
she was ready enough with her criticisms. Roger often met 
Miss Gunning hurrying along on her way to or from the 
village half a mile inland where she performed the duties of 
minister (without portfolio) to the embarrassment of the 
vicar. Whenever they did meet Miss Gunning was never 
in too much of a hurry to stop and talk and Roger noticed 
that no matter what subject the conversation might begin 
with, it invariably got round to her nephew. It was rather 
touching to observe how wrapped up in John she was and 
how he seemed to be the loadstar of her somewhat circum¬ 
scribed existence. She confided her hopes and fears about 
John, her reminiscences of his childish days and her proud 
anticipations of the glory that would be his when he 
reached the dizzy heights of the Episcopal bench, with a 
candour which Roger felt sure John would have disliked 
exceedingly if he could have heard her, and she obviously 
regarded him himself as, if not the rose, one who had been 
near it and inhaled its delicate perfume. 

It was always a source of wonder to him that John had 
shown none of the signs of feminine upbringing which are 
so often discernible in those who have spent a solitary 
childhood with only middle-aged females to regulate the 
slippery paths of youth but he knew nothing of the sacri¬ 
fices Miss Gunning had made to the end that her nephew 
should grow up to be manly, independent and virile. 



202 


A CERTAIN MAN 


The weary hours she had spent “ bowling ” until her brain 
reeled and her head ached; the moments of agony she had 
endured encouraging the boy, in a voice that quavered with 
terror lest he should be dashed to pieces before her eyes, to 
climb the topmost boughs of high trees; the heroic calm 
with which she had doctored wounds and bruises received 
in fair fight; the tears she had not shed, but which had 
blinded her eyes, when, at her instigation, he went off to a 
boarding school; all these things, and many others, were 
locked up in her own breast never to be revealed. 

Yet now, when he was away from her, she trembled lest 
the wind might blow too roughly upon him and lay awake at 
nights wondering how he was standing the effects of the heat 
in London. 

Mrs. Ffoulkes, though she was fond of her son, was far 
too engrossed in registering her own absorbing ailments to 
have time to waste on the potential ones of other people, and, 
though she professed anxiety for his health, only did so 
because it could be held to account for the latest symptom 
which was in process of development and was also con¬ 
venient for the extraction of sympathy. She wielded it as 
a conductor wields his baton to regulate the exact volume 
of sound he requires from his musicians, and had only to 
raise it aloft to have the full chorus ready to lift their 
voices the minute it was dropped. She had never been 
able to understand, as her sister had done, the necessity 
for laying all this emphasis on fostering the manly spirit 
in her boy and would have been quite content to see him 
grow up a perfect lady. 

She was much too lethargic to interfere, however, and 
resigned herself to the inevitable with no more effort than 
an occasional protest when John returned home from a 
bird’s-nesting expedition with a hole in his nether garments 
and, once, a nervous breakdown when he presented him¬ 
self before her horrified vision with a bloody nose and 
bunged up eye, the result of an encounter with the butcher’s 
boy who had presumed to pass personal remarks upon Miss 



A CERTAIN MAN. 203 

Gunning’s headgear and to suggest that it had been picked 
up on the beach. 

Miss Gunning was, as far as outward appearances went, 
typical of her species. There was no outward and visible 
sign to connect her with either cricket, bird’s-nesting or the 
noble art of self-defence, and if anybody had told Roger 
that she had ever forced herself, against her inclinations 
and from a strict sense of duty towards her nephew, to 
encourage these nerve-wracking pastimes, he would have 
laughed in his informant’s face. To him she was merely a 
dull elderly somewhat austere spinster of advanced years 
and unprepossessing exterior, entirely devoid of any sport¬ 
ing instinct whatsoever, and with about as much under¬ 
standing of boyish aspirations as a camel. 

When Biddy and Miss Bellamy took up their quarters at 
The Windy Mount in the third week in July, Roger felt as 
if he had spent the greater part of his life at Porth Ros and 
as though Harwood, the war, and those three horrible years 
in London following on the war, were the events of some 
former existence dimly remembered. 

It was the morning after their arrival that he first saw 
Biddy when he was hurrying homewards, blue and cold, 
from attending Mr. Peal at a submerged rock. 

At the corner of the beach two roads led straight down on 
to the sands. The right hand one led to The Rise, the left 
hand one to a little isolated group of cottages and small 
houses and it was from the steps of the post office, a little 
white-washed building which combined the functions of the 
local Harrod’s stores with its more official ones, that Biddy 
hailed him. 

“ Hullo, Man Friday,” she called, waving a white paper 
bag she carried in her right hand and, at the same moment, 
dropping a brown paper parcel she held in her left. “ Where 
have you sprung from?” 

“ Like Venus, from the sea,” returned Roger. “ I say. 
It is ripping to see you here.” 

He was making his way towards her as he spoke, uncom- 



204 


A CERTAIN MAN 


fortably conscious of the wet bathing suit underneath the 
Burberry which he wore clinging to his shivering limbs in a 
clammy embrace yet willing to endure it an extra five min¬ 
utes for the pleasure of seeing her once more. A companion 
of his own age had been the one thing lacking to make his 
happiness in this new life of his complete and he had looked 
forward to Biddy’s arrival with joyful anticipation. His 
sojourn under John’s roof, brief as it had been, had whetted 
his appetite for comradeship and although he had only met 
Mrs. Rycroft on three occasions, the occasions had been 
very far from ordinary ones and he had a sort of feeling, 
which the length of his acquaintanceship with her did not 
warrant, that she was an old friend and he made no attempt 
to conceal this feeling in the tones in which he welcomed 
her. 

“ It’s ripping to be here,” she said, as they met half way 
between their respective starting points. “ You’ll be glad 
to hear that I’m fast renewing my youth in these con¬ 
genial surroundings. Like Alice, I put my hand on the 
top of my head this morning when I woke up and said 
anxiously, £ Which way? Which way?’, and when I got 
out of bed and saw the same Porth with not a grain of 
sand out of place I knew it was all right and that I was 
growing down. By tomorrow I shall probably have grown 
down sufficiently to shorten my skirts and let my hair hang 
in a pig-tail.” 

“ Don’t overdo it. You can’t afford to grow down too 
much. It ’ud be awful if you couldn’t stop and grew right 
down to pinafores and white socks.” 

Biddy eyed Roger’s bare legs critically. 

“You appear to have grown down beyond even white 
socks,” she observed judicially. “ What does it feel like to 
find yourself back in the days of extreme youth?” 

“ Topping,” ejaculated Roger with emphasis. “ Only 
I’ve had nobody to play with. Now you’ve come I’ll go 
a bust and buy a spade and bucket. I bet you I’ll make 
a sand castle that’ll keep out the sea longer than yours.” 


A CERTAIN MAN 


205 


“ Done,” said Biddy promptly. “ Let’s go and buy the 
necessary implements now.” 

“Well, you see, not having a pocket in my — I mean 
John’s bathing suit I left my sixpence at home,” demurred 
Roger. 

“ I think Uncle Robinson ought to have provided you 
with suitable playthings,” remarked Biddy severely. “ Any¬ 
how, come to tea this afternoon and afterwards we’ll go 
shopping.” 

“ I will, if Uncle will let me,” Roger said primly. 

“ Is he very strict with you?” enquired Biddy. 

“ He’s a ripper,” responded Roger enthusiastically. “ He 
never takes a mean advantage of his undoubtedly superior 
position. He always makes me feel I must be very kind 
to him just because he’s so terribly polite. I might be an 
important sort of guest — an O. B. E. or something of 
that kind, instead of a mere chronicler of current events in 
high Molluscan circles. I think I’ll leave you now and get 
into some dry garments.” 

“ All right. Tea at half-past four then.” 

“ Uncle permitting.” 

“ Bring Uncle too,” invited Biddy. “ Do you think he 
would have any objection to shrimps for tea, or would he 
regard such a proceeding as a studied insult to the Mollus¬ 
can race?” 

“My dear Mrs. Rycroft!” Roger exclaimed in mock 
horror. “ Forgive my pointing out to you that a shrimp is 
a Crustacean, not a Mollusc.” 

“ Oh, then it doesn’t matter, does it?” Biddy said. “ I 
love shrimps for tea when I’m at the seaside. It seems 
to give the necessary touch of local colour.” 

“ You are a true artist, I can see,” Roger said with a bow. 
“ The ordinary mortal is so apt to overlook the fact that 
there is anything beyond the commonplace waves and 
rocks and sand which, to him, constitute the seaside, but 
you have a more chaste perception of its true inner meaning. 
You belong to the school of thought which can only prop- 



206 


A CERTAIN MAN 


erly enjoy Parsifal to the accompaniment of peppermints.” 

“ Out of a crackly paper bag/’ put in Biddy eagerly. 
“ Oh, Mr. Dibden! How you have gauged the hidden 
secrets of my soul.” 

Then because, for the time, they were just two children 
ready to see a joke in everything, they laughed at their own 
feeble wit as though it were full of some subtle humour, 
and parted. 

Mr. Peal, when Roger gave him Biddy’s invitation, was 
duly grateful but sternly refused to accept it, so Roger, 
after a careful toilette, upon which he expended much 
thought, went off alone to tea. 

Barnby, looking entirely out of place in the tiny passage 
hall of the villa residence, admitted Roger with an air of 
relief. He did not altogether approve of the cramped quar¬ 
ters in which he now found himself and felt he was in 
danger of losing caste, but the sight of someone who had 
lately seen him in his proper sphere in town reassured him. 

His relief was so great that he departed from his usual 
custom and unbent so far as to address the visitor. 

“ Very circumscribed quarters, Sir,” he said apologeti¬ 
cally. “ ’Ardly more than a doll’s ’ouse, as one might say.” 

“ Better than a dug-out though,” Roger said. 

“ A dug-out, Sir, ’ardly falls under the ’eading of a 
’uman ’abitation,” said Barnby reprovingly. 

“ P’raps not, but there were times during the war when, 
if I’d been given the choice between a dug-out and a palace, 
I’d have plumped for the dug-out without a moment’s 
hesitation,” Roger said. 

“ Quite so, Sir, but the present need for dug-outs being 
’appily a thing of the past, I’m inclined to prefer the palace 
when available,” Barnby declared with decision. “ This 
way, Sir.” 

Miss Bellamy and Biddy were in the diminutive drawing 
room when Roger was ushered in and the former, with due 
regard to the role assigned to her by John, gave him a 
friendly smile of welcome. By dint of stern self-repression 



A CERTAIN MAN 


207 


she had managed to force herself to forget that there was 
anything out of the ordinary in connection with the manner 
in which this young man and Biddy had become acquainted 
and she greeted him as she would have greeted any other 
of the numerous young men who frequented Biddy’s house 
in London. 

She was too loyal to try and ferret out what it was 
obvious she was not meant to know and, if she had any 
feeling of being shut out of Biddy’s confidence, she success¬ 
fully concealed it on this occasion. She had an intense 
dislike to mysteries, not so much because she was possessed 
of more than common curiosity as because they gave her 
a sense of restriction which prevented her from behaving 
quite naturally. At her previous meeting with Roger a 
certain awkwardness had marked the situation and awk¬ 
wardness was not, as a rule, a disadvantage from which 
Miss Bellamy suffered and she resented it proportionately. 
Then, however, she had been taken more or less unawares 
and had had no opportunity of marshaling her forces to 
withstand the sudden onslaught, whereas now she was pre¬ 
pared and had consolidated her position accordingly. 

In London, some subtle instinct had told Roger that he 
was being deliberately kept outside the inner circle of Miss 
Bellamy’s favour and his manner towards her at this second 
meeting was inclined to be a little stiff accordingly, but he 
thawed directly he found that she was ready to be friendly 
and in less than five minutes they were chatting to one 
another as though there were no hidden places in Roger’s 
past life out of which Miss Bellamy was kept. 

Biddy, it must be confessed, had been guiltily conscious 
of her want of candour towards the one who had never 
wavered in her trust of her but though she might put a 
bold front on the matter she was, in reality, a trifle ner¬ 
vous as to whether a confession of the happenings of that 
night when she had first met Roger would be well received 
by her old governess. 

Miss Bellamy was broad-minded enough to pass over a 



208 


A CERTAIN MAN 


good many things that would have shocked other people 
but, where Biddy was concerned, she would gladly have 
gone to the stake rather than allow the faintest breath of 
gossip to blow upon her ex-charge’s reputation. 

It was because of this idiosyncrasy on Miss Bellamy’s 
part, of which Biddy was fully aware, that the latter had 
jibbed at any explanation of the circumstances connected 
with Roger’s first appearance upon the scenes and had pre¬ 
ferred to let it be thought that he was a protege of John’s, 
deluding herself into the belief that nobody was likely to 
entertain any other idea for a single instant and blissfully 
ignorant of the fact that John had, unwittingly, given her 
away. 

It was with feelings of decided relief, therefore, that she 
observed her two companions on terms of comparative inti¬ 
macy, considering the shortness of their acquaintanceship 
with one another, and realised that there was not much 
likelihood of any awkward questions being raised at this 
period. Barnby brought in the tea, including a plate of 
shrimps, with a faintly protesting air as though the latter 
delicacies were things unknown in the circles in which he 
moved. He evidently appeared to consider that his prestige 
would be lowered if it ever got about that he had lived in a 
family that had sunk to such depths of degradation as to 
admit shrimps into the drawing room. 

“ Poor Barnby,” observed Biddy, when he had retired 
again and the door was shut on him. “ What a blow to his 
susceptibilities.” 

“ Worse than Mr. Osier’s bottle of beer in bed every 
morning,” remarked Miss Bellamy. “ Barnby’s last place 
was with a certain Mr. Osier who always drank a bottle of 
beer before he got up,” she explained, turning to Roger. 
“ It so outraged Barnby’s sense of what was fitting that he 
gave notice at the end of three months.” 

“ Barnby’s a frightful stickler for etiquette,” Biddy said. 
“ He makes me feel like an unsophisticated schoolgirl when 
he catches me out in something of which he disapproves. 


A CERTAIN MAN 


209 


At first, when he came to me three years ago, he insisted 
on waiting up to let me in, if I was out at a dance or any¬ 
thing, although I pointed out to him that I was a widow- 
woman and quite capable of looking after myself. What 
do you think his reply was to that?” 

“ I haven’t a notion,” Roger said. 

“ He said very solemnly, ‘ Excuse me Madam, but it’s 
looks as I go by.’ ” 

Roger laughed boisterously. 

“ How did you break him of sitting up for you?” he 
enquired. 

“ I told him I didn’t wish it,” Biddy said with dignity. 
“ I asked him what he thought was likely to happen to me 
in my own house with the door locked, but even that didn’t 
disconcert him. He merely said, ‘ You might inadvertently 
neglect to turn the key in the lock, Madam. Ladies are 
prone that way.’ ” 

“ By Jove! It was a lucky thing for me that night — ” 
began Roger impulsively, then with a sudden recollection of 
Miss Bellamy’s presence, pulled himself up in confusion. 

Instinctively both he and Biddy threw a hurried glance in 
that lady’s direction to observe whether she had noticed 
the slip, but she was apparently deeply absorbed in choosing 
the particular lump of sugar that had taken her fancy out 
of the bowl and taking no interest whatever in the conver¬ 
sation. 

All the same, the broken off sentence had not passed un¬ 
noticed and although she made a gallant effort to force her 
mind into another trend of thought, Miss Bellamy could not 
help wondering what the end of it was to be. What was 
it that was lucky for Roger? What possible connection 
could there be between him and Barnby having been forbid¬ 
den by Biddy to sit up for her at nights? Like a flash it 
came to her. Roger must have been to the house at an 
hour when, but for Biddy’s orders, Barnby would have been 
about. Miss Bellamy was not a suspicious woman and she 
would have cheerfully cut off her right hand sooner than 



210 


A CERTAIN MAN 


harbour any doubts of Biddy but, all the same, a feeling 
of uneasiness assailed her. She knew Biddy’s proclivity for 
rushing in where an angel would have feared to tread and, 
recalling what she had already learned from John, she was 
able, more or less, to arrive at something very near the 
truth. Without being in the slightest degree narrow¬ 
minded Miss Bellamy was, nevertheless, somewhat discon¬ 
certed at her discovery. She knew her world and she could 
picture, in imagination, the faces of its inhabitants and hear 
their malicious whispers if it ever came to light that Biddy 
had admitted an entirely unknown young man into her 
house at an hour when even the staid and decorous Barnby 
had retired to rest. She could understand now this con¬ 
spiracy of silence which had hitherto puzzled her. Even 
the impetuous Biddy, who, as a rule, was impervious to 
public opinion, had realised that in this case she must lie low 
and not blazon her indiscretion abroad. 

If Miss Bellamy had known the true facts of the case 
she might perhaps have regarded the affair with greater 
tolerance, but having only circumstantial evidence to go 
upon she very naturally concluded that it had been an act 
of due deliberation and made no allowances for that pro¬ 
pelling of Fate which is responsible for so many of the sit¬ 
uations in life that are acted without the scene being set and 
in which the performers play their parts unrehearsed. 

As so often happens when a conversation is broken up 
in confusion by some mal-a-propos remark, neither Biddy 
nor Roger could think of a single thing to say to cover up 
the blunder. To start an entirely fresh subject without any 
link between it and what they had previously been discuss¬ 
ing was to emphasize the fact that a blunder had been made 
and yet there seemed no possible means of gliding, in a 
manner which would appear natural, from the opinions held 
by Barnby as to the irresponsibility of the female sex when 
entrusted with a latch key to an irrelevant topic such as the 
weather or the probabilities of a coal strike in the immedi¬ 
ate future. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


211 


Therefore an awkward pause ensued during which nobody 
said anything. 

It was Miss Bellamy who was the first to speak. 

In those few brief seconds of weighty silence, during 
which the other two groped blindly to find an outlet, she 
had swiftly made up her mind. 

“ Don’t you think you’d better tell me all about it?” she 
asked. 

“ About what?” enquired Biddy in her turn, in tones 
which she strove to make surprised but which she only suc¬ 
ceeded in making apologetic. 

“ About ‘ that night,’ ” went on Miss Bellamy, drawing a 
bow at a venture. “ That night when it was a lucky 
thing for Mr. Dibden that Barnby wasn’t sitting up for 
you.” 

“ You know all about it already,” Biddy said accusingly. 
“ John told you.” 

“ John didn’t tell me,” said Miss Bellamy calmly. 

“ Who did then?” cried Biddy. 

“ You did yourselves, you silly children,” Miss Bellamy 
retorted. 

“ I’ve a perfect right to invite anybody I choose into my 
own house at any hour of the day or night I choose,” flashed 
out Biddy vehemently. 

“ Absolutely,” agreed Miss Bellamy imperturbably. 

“ Then why are you trying to reduce a perfectly ordinary 
affair to the level of a second-rate melodrama?” demanded 
Biddy peremptorily. 

“ I didn’t know I was,” Miss Bellamy answered good- 
humouredly. “ I only wondered where the mystery came 
in.” 

“ I think you’re perfectly horrid, Belle,” declared Biddy, 
by this time not very far from tears. “ I didn’t tell you 
because — because — ” 

“ Because you weren’t quite sure how I’d take it,” Miss 
Bellamy finished for her. “ My dear child, have you ever 
known me to distrust you? I’ve no doubt the whole 



212 


A CERTAIN MAN 


affair is, as you say, a perfectly ordinary one, so why treat 
it as otherwise?” 

“ It was a perfectly ordinary one,” reiterated Biddy. 
“ Only with some rather extraordinary features connected 
with it,” she added hesitatingly, looking enquiringly at 
Roger as she spoke. 

“ Mine,” explained that individual as Miss Bellamy’s 
eyes, following those of Biddy, travelled in his direction. 

The terse remark did more to relieve the tension than 
anything else could have. Biddy, who up to this point had 
been inclined to feel aggrieved, rent the air with an uncon¬ 
trollable squeal of amusement, while Miss Bellamy’s features 
relaxed in a smile almost before she had time to realise it, 
whereat Roger guffawed loudly, and the next minute all 
three of them were rocking to and fro in a paroxysm of 
laughter quite out of proportion to the humour of the 
observation which occasioned it. 

“ We must tell her now,” said Biddy, when at last she 
could control her voice. “ Do you mind?” 

“ You tell her then,” Roger said weakly. 

So Biddy proceeded to unfold the story of that first meet¬ 
ing between herself and Roger and, when she had finished, 
drew herself up defiantly. 

“ So now you know,” she concluded challengingly, as 
though to say “Criticize, if you dare,” but Miss Bellamy 
made no attempt to do any such thing. 

Instead she reached out her hand and touched Roger on 
the arm. 

“ It won’t be my fault if you don’t hatch out,” she said 
cryptically, at which remark Biddy stared in amazement, 
but Roger, who, although uncomprehending, sensed the 
friendliness behind it, smiled gratefully. 

“ It’s awfully good of you to say so,” he returned, feeling 
that some acknowledgment was expected of him and that, 
under the circumstances, it was safer to generalize. 

“ I don’t know what on earth you’re talking about but I 
do know I’m dying for my tea so I move the closure, or 



A CERTAIN MAN 


213 


whatever they do in Parliament when they get tied up in a 
debate,” Biddy observed. 

“ Carried without a division,” said Roger. 


CHAPTER XIV 


Perhaps it was not altogether to be wondered at that, 
as time went on, Biddy and Roger grew to depend on one 
another, more or less, for companionship. Apart from the 
visitors who, as the holiday season advanced, swooped down 
upon the district and filled every available corner, there was 
no one of their own age and standing with whom they could 
consort and it was but natural, seeing the origin of their 
acquaintanceship, that they should have more in common 
with one another than with a mere casual and temporary 
associate who was here today and gone tomorrow, and with 
whom neither of them had anything in common. 

Without any definite arrangement to that effect, they 
drifted into the custom of going off together on Sundays 
(the only day that Roger could spare for such a thing) for 
long expeditions either along the cliffs or to some point of 
interest inland, starting off directly after lunch and not 
returning until the evening. 

These Sunday expeditions were, to Roger at any rate, a 
sheer joy and he looked forward to them all through the 
week with pleasurable anticipation. 

He loved the leisurely walk along the cliff top with the 
sheep-cropped grass redolent with the odour of thyme. He 
loved the golden patches of gorse, the stretches of purple 
heather, the streaks of white against the blue of the sky as 
the gulls wheeled round their heads with shrill warning cries 
to their mates of the approach of human beings. He revelled 
in the meals eaten at trestle tables in the gardens of white¬ 
washed cottages if the weather was propitious or, if not, 
in musty little parlours, the stuffiness of which did not pre¬ 
vent full justice being done to the “ splits ” and jam and 
Cornish cream, not to mention the heaped up plates of cake, 
214 


A CERTAIN MAN 


215 


which was a course at which he never arrived because by 
the time he had finished the other things he had already 
eaten more than was good for him. 

But, best of all, he loved the walk back in the cool of the 
evening, watching the sun setting over the sea with a golden 
pathway stretching from it to the shore like a fairy draw¬ 
bridge. 

And when the last rays disappeared and the bridge was 
drawn up for the night, the soft gray twilight would slowly 
draw its veil over the face of the sea, changing it from blue 
to purple and from purple to black and, overhead, the stars 
would come out one by one and sometimes a planet, hanging 
low over the water near the invisible horizon, would try to 
emulate the sun by throwing a feeble path of light along 
the surface of the sea in servile imitation of the dazzling 
golden one which had been there an hour before, and a 
little cool breeze would spring up and rustle through the 
garments of the two homefarers and touch the hair on their 
foreheads in a gentle caress, passing on with a whispered 
benediction until it seemed as if they two were walking 
alone in a world peopled by ghosts, the ghosts of all those 
who, long centuries since, had lived and loved and, maybe, 
suffered beside that changeless yet ever changing sea. 

It was only on occasions, when they had been tempted by 
the fineness of the weather to linger unduly, that they found 
themselves overtaken by darkness, but when this did hap¬ 
pen their conversation would, almost insensibly, turn to 
more intimate subjects. It was as though the night invited 
confidences which, in the glare of daylight, would have 
seemed too delicate to bear the weight of speech. 

To nobody, hitherto, had Biddy spoken out fully of the 
wretched disappointment of her married life as she did to 
Roger under the cover of darkness. To him she talked 
openly and frankly of that initial mistake of hers in con¬ 
founding hero-worship with love and of how she had only 
realised that mistake when it was too late to rectify it. It 
was to Roger that she confessed what, up to now, she had 



216 


A CERTAIN MAN 


shrunk from acknowledging even to herself — the relief she 
had felt when Colonel Rycroft died. 

“ It was like being let loose from prison,” she said. “ I 
tried to feel sorry, I honestly did, but I couldn’t. I’d never 
known what it was to be free before. Until I married I was 
in the schoolroom and after I married — oh, you don’t know 
what it was. I was treated like a child; at first I was 
spoiled, and then, as time went on and my — husband got 
used to me, and the glamour wore off, I was relegated to the 
background and controlled and supervised and suspected 
and cross-examined about my movements until I could have 
run away and hidden myself in some place where nobody 
could have found me. My husband consulted my wishes as 
little as he would have consulted the wishes of the boot-boy, 
perhaps not as much, for the boot-boy was in a position to 
give notice whereas I wasn’t. He chose my friends, my 
amusements and my frocks and, if I went out alone, 
demanded a detailed account of every moment of the time 
I was out of his sight. I was a prisoner on parole. He lived 
his life, every minute of it — oh, very much lived it — but 
he wouldn’t let me live mine. I can’t think why he left me 
his money, but he did. Sometimes I almost wish he hadn’t. 
You see, I know so little about business and that kind of 
thing. I only began to grow up four years ago. Before 
that I never had a chance to learn — things.” 

That accounted for the queer mixture of Biddy’s charac¬ 
ter, Roger decided, when he heard all this. At twenty-nine 
(Biddy made no secret of her age) she was, in some respects, 
singularly innocent and unsophisticated though, as Roger 
remarked to himself when he gathered, from some chance 
word of hers, the true inward character of the late Colonel 
Rycroft, V. C., “ Good Lord! I should have thought six 
years of that old swine was a liberal education for any girl.” 

One thing he observed with gratitude and that was that 
although Biddy was bitter about her matrimonial experi¬ 
ence, she was not bitter about the world at large and 
accepted any pleasure that came her way, however simple, 



A CERTAIN MAN 


217 


with all the fervour of a schoolgirl, and was able to enjoy 
it whole-heartedly. Indeed, the more simple it was, the 
more she seemed to throw herself into it, though, when 
necessary, she could assume the air of a woman of the world 
without any apparent effort, and it was part of her 
attractiveness that one never quite knew which of the two 
characters she was going to be next and she changed from 
one into the other with a rapidity of a quick-change 
artiste. The confidences were not all on her side either. Roger, 
too, encouraged by the knowledge that his face could not be 
seen, found it possible to unburden his soul of some of the 
load which had weighed it down, and which he had never 
quite been able to rid himself of, during that period of 
despair and hopelessness when he had felt himself slowly 
but surely sinking lower and lower with no helping hand 
stretched out to save. 

He told her of the horrible dread which had enveloped 
him like a dark cloud and dogged his footsteps like some 
implacable Fate — the dread lest, having sold his birthright 
for a mess of pottage, he should quench the last flicker of 
hope and be swallowed up in the darkness. He described 
to her, with a wealth of graphic detail, the privations he 
had undergone, the humiliations he had suffered, the straits 
to which he had been put to keep body and soul together. 
He drew a word picture for her of a night spent in a com¬ 
mon lodging-house with such vividness that, for a brief 
second, it almost seemed as if the clean ozone-laden breeze 
that had travelled straight from Newfoundland over thou¬ 
sands of miles of ocean, was tainted with the foul stench 
of unclean humanity and as if, above the crashing of the 
waves on the shore below, could be heard the bitter curses 
and muttered threats of men stripped bare of the last rag 
of decency and self-respect, who had nothing to live for, 
yet feared to die, and who, if they had the chance, would 
pull down to their level all who had kept what they them¬ 
selves had wantonly thrown away. 

It was the first time Roger had ever spoken so openly 



218 


A CERTAIN MAN 


about that time. Even to John he had never enlarged upon 
his own feelings in the way he now did to Biddy. The dark¬ 
ness seemed to make the narration of them curiously imper¬ 
sonal. It was as though the events recorded had nothing to 
do with either of them individually but had happened to 
somebody else quite apart from themselves. And when, 
after these outbursts of confidences, they reached home and 
could see one another’s faces, they would each of them feel 
as if the other was some stranger whom he hardly knew, 
and yet, at the same time, there was a bond of sympathy 
between them which belied that feeling and gave them a 
sense of security which had been lacking before. 

If Miss Bellamy had any qualms about these expeditions 
she kept them to herself. She was far too astute a woman 
to risk interference. Biddy was no longer in her charge 
and would, quite properly, have resented any attempts on 
her part to dictate a line of conduct. A widow of twenty- 
nine cannot be treated in the same way as a young girl. 
She is, in the eyes of the world at any rate, her own mis¬ 
tress, and capable of conducting her own affairs in her own 
way, and if she makes a mess of them, has nobody to blame 
but herself. Moreover, as has been seen, Miss Bellamy had 
a strong objection to any direct action. She preferred to 
reach her objective by a circuitous route as being the safer 
method of getting there. 

It was not that she considered there was any harm in 
Biddy making a habit of these excursions. Her qualms, if 
they existed, were based on the grounds that, when all was 
said and done, Roger was a new acquaintance of whom 
they knew very little and who had first come to light in a 
manner which, to say the least, was distinctly unorthodox. 
In London Biddy danced and rode and dined and went to 
theatres and music halls with a variety of young men and 
it was all looked upon as the natural thing to do and Miss 
Bellamy thought nothing of it, but then in London there 
was that saving clause “ variety,” whereas here there was no 
variety and ^herein lay the danger. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


219 


Miss Bellamy had, by craft, removed Biddy from the 
threatening of one peril and she had serious misgivings 
whether it was not a case of out of the frying pan into the 
fire. 

She had nothing against Roger. She liked rather than 
disliked him, but he was x, an unknown quantity and, until 
she had worked out the problem of what “ x ” stood for, 
she was uneasy in her own mind, especially after a conver¬ 
sation she had had with Mrs. Ffoulkes, for it showed that 
other people besides herself had remarked on these weekly 
peregrinations and drawn their own conclusions which 
might be erroneous but which were calculated to cause 
mischief. 

It was one afternoon when Biddy had gone into Hine to 
do some shopping that Mrs. Ffoulkes, who had evidently 
watched her out and seen her climb the cliff path leading 
to the town, bore down upon Miss Bellamy with an obvious 
air of determination to “ speak out and damn the conse¬ 
quences ” oozing from her at every pore. 

Miss Bellamy, who was on the point of sallying forth to 
sit on the beach, unfortunately met her on the doorstep as 
she came out, so there was no denying her being at liberty 
to see her visitor, for the cushion and rug she carried gave 
her away. 

“ Won’t you come in?” she asked, putting as little cordi¬ 
ality into her voice as was compatible with good manners. 
“ I was just going down to the beach.” 

If she hoped by this means to head Mrs. Ffoulkes off she 
was quite mistaken. 

“ Thank you, I will just for a few moments, if I’m not 
detaining you,” that lady said. 

It was so palpable that she was detaining her that Miss 
Bellamy didn’t think it worth while to protest to the con¬ 
trary and led the way to the drawing room with anything 
but hospitable intent. 

She did not sit down when they reached it, although she 
motioned her unwelcome guest to a chair, but stood by the 


220 


A CERTAIN MAN 


fireplace, the rug and cushion still under her arm, as a 
hint that, although hindered for the moment, she was still 
on her way to the beach. 

“ I’m afraid Biddy’s gone to Hine,” she said when Mrs. 
Ffoulkes had seated herself pantingly in the chair. 

“ My breathing’s so bad,” said Mrs. Ffoulkes shaking her 
head gloomily, and paying no attention to this piece of 
news, which was no news to her. “ It catches me here,” she 
continued, placing a plump hand on her chest. 

“ It generally does, if it catches one anywhere,” returned 
Miss Bellamy, wondering whether Mrs. Ffoulkes had come 
to discuss her bad breathing or whether it was merely the 
prelude to something deeper even than that. 

“ Doctor Crowe is giving me a new medicine with pare¬ 
goric in it which he hopes will relieve it,” went on Mrs. 
Ffoulkes. 

“ I hope it will,” said Miss Bellamy politely. “ But is it 
wise to try and talk?” 

“ It’s walking, not talking, that’s bad for it,” Mrs. 
Ffoulkes informed her impressively. 

“ How curious,” said Miss Bellamy for the sake of saying 
something. 

“It is curious, as you say,” agreed Mrs. Ffoulkes pon¬ 
derously. “ I was a great walker in my younger days.” 

“ Fancy,” said Miss Bellamy, dropping the cushion and 
picking it up again in case it should have escaped Mrs. 
Ffoulkes’ notice. 

“ But that was in the days of our dear Queen,” Mrs. 
Ffoulkes remarked with an extra deep breath which Miss 
Bellamy supposed was intended as a sigh of regret; “ Things 
are so different now.” 

Mrs. Ffoulkes was one of that race of people, now almost 
extinct, who believe that the world has steadily retrograded 
since the Victorian era came to an end. She didn’t quite 
go to the length of declaring that “ art stopped short in the 
cultivated court of the Empress Josephine ” because she was 
always rather suspicious of art in any form, and French art 



A CERTAIN MAN 


221 


in particular, but she did consider that the decline of the 
British Empire had set in when “ the hand of Queen Vic¬ 
toria was removed from the tiller of the Ship of State.” 
(The words quoted are from the funeral oration preached 
by the then vicar in Surridge church on that historic occa¬ 
sion, a printed copy of which was cherished between the 
leaves of the Bible which lay on the table beside Mrs. 
Ffoulkes’ bed.) 

Unlike her friend, Mrs. Chaworth, the tide of war had 
barely wetted her feet and, in spite of the fact that John 
was serving as a chaplain at the front, she had never suc¬ 
ceeded in visualising what war really did mean. She had 
pictured him as conducting decorous services at a safe dis¬ 
tance from the danger zone, clad in surplice and cassock 
with, perhaps, a choir composed of those “ dear soldiers,” 
when other duties did not claim them, as she supposed 
must sometimes happen. That he ran the slightest risk 
never entered her head, and when, on his first leave, he 
tried to explain to her what No Man’s Land was and she 
persisted in calling it Tom Tidier’s ground he gave it up in 
despair and left her to her blissful ignorance. 

So, when Mrs. Ffoulkes observed that things were so dif¬ 
ferent now to what they had been in Queen Victoria’s days, 
no hint of her real meaning entered Miss Bellamy’s head, 
and she only thought how boring it all was, and speculated 
why it was that John could be so utterly unlike his mother, 
and had just determined, in her own mind, that the late 
Mr. Ffoulkes must have been an exceptionally charming 
man, when she was pulled up short in her reflections by the 
next remark. 

“Who, and what is this Mr. Dibden?” enquired Mrs. 
Ffoulkes. 

“ He’s a friend of your son’s,” answered Miss Bellamy 
promptly. 

“ Possibly,” said Mrs. Ffoulkes. “ But that is no answer 
to my question. My son, by reason of his sacred calling, 
has to form acquaintances —” (she uttered the word 



222 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“ acquaintances ” in the tones she might have employed if 
she were speaking of some noxious species of insect) “ who 
are all very well in their place but whom one would hardly 
admit to terms of equality with oneself. I met this young 
man of whom we are speaking the first evening he arrived 
at Mr. Peaks and I am bound to confess that he struck me 
as being strangely at his ease for one in his position. I 
should have liked to see a little more reserve, a little more 
deference.” 

“ You’ve been a long time finding it out,” Miss Bellamy 
said bluntly. 

“ I reserved judgment, that is all,” Mrs. Ffoulkes replied, 
in a judicial manner. “ Did my son, may I ask, introduce 
this young man to Biddy?” 

This was a poser for which Miss Bellamy was unprepared 
and while she was trying to frame a suitable rejoinder Mrs. 
Ffoulkes spoke again. 

“ He did not, I gather,” she declared triumphantly. 
“ That shows you, you see.” 

With an effort, Miss Bellamy collected her scattered wits. 

“ Biddy met Mr. Dibden first in her own house,” she said 
with perfect truth but a guilty conscience. 

“Did John bring him there?” persisted the terrible old 
inquisitor. 

“ Mr. Ffoulkes brought him to lunch,” said Miss Bellamy 
boldly, hoping the statement was near enough the truth to 
escape being a lie. 

She was delighted to observe that Mrs. Ffoulkes was 
somewhat taken aback by it, but the old lady was not 
so easily routed as all that, and returned to the charge with 
renewed vigour. 

“ Why?” she demanded, point blank. 

“ I really couldn’t tell you,” said Miss Bellamy, feeling 
that in another minute she would scream if this searching 
cross-examination was continued. 

“ My son was very attracted by Mrs. Rycroft in bygone 
days,” observed Mrs. Ffoulkes ruminatingly. “ I can’t think 



A CERTAIN MAN 


223 


what reason he could have had for introducing this young 
man into her house.” 

This was so evidently a refined version of the warning 
“ Never introduce your donah to a pal ” that it instantly 
drove Miss Bellamy to retaliation. 

“ Whatever may have been the custom in the days of 
Queen Victoria, in these days a woman, especially a woman 
in the position of Mrs. Rycroft, is not the sole preserve of a 
man merely because he has once been attracted by her,” she 
said, speaking slowly and distinctly so that the full purport 
of her remark should not be lost on her adversary. 

Mrs. Ffoulkes flushed to an unbecoming plum colour. 

“ I see no necessity for vulgarity,” she said, drawing her¬ 
self up as far as her portly figure would allow her to do 
such a thing. 

It was on the tip of Miss Bellamy’s tongue to quote a 
certain proverb anent Satan and a long spoon but she had 
the sense to know that this would be going rather too far 
so she held her tongue and said nothing, although she shared 
the feelings of the psalmist on a similar occasion. 

“ You will do well to warn dear Biddy that a widow, and 
more particularly one who is young, rich and charming, 
cannot be too careful,” said Mrs. Ffoulkes, mistaking Miss 
Bellamy’s silence for a sign of capitulation and encouraged 
thereby to speak more plainly than she might otherwise 
have done. 

But this was more than Miss Bellamy could put up with. 

“ What exactly do you mean?” she enquired with omi¬ 
nous calm. 

“ I mean that it is very unwise of her to allow this — this 
young man from nowhere, to monopolize her in the way he 
does,” Mrs. Ffoulkes replied, warming up to her subject. 
“ My maid tells me she met them returning home last 
Sunday at a quarter to ten, and I myself saw them start out 
at two o’clock, so that they had been alone together for 
close on eight hours.” 

After this ebullition on the part of Mrs. Ffoulkes, Miss 



224 


A CERTAIN MAN 


Bellamy would have died rather than admit that she too had 
doubts as to the wisdom of Biddy’s conduct. The moment 
had arrived in which to carry the war into the enemy’s 
camp. 

“ I wonder,” she said, “ whether, if Biddy had not been a 
young, rich and charming widow to whom your son was very 
attracted in bygone days, you would have thought it worth 
while to come here and say what you have done?” 

She knew the remark was offensive but she didn’t care. 
She was too boiling with rage to pick her words. 

Mrs. Ffoulkes who, up till now, had fancied she held the 
field, was so taken aback by this sudden onslaught that 
she could think of no suitable rejoinder and sat there 
opening and shutting her mouth like a newly landed fish 
and staring at Miss Bellamy with round eyes of alarm. 

“ Really /” she said at last. She was acutely aware that, 
under the circumstances, the retort lacked sufficient vim to 
make it effective but it was the only one that came into 
her mind at the moment and she had to say something or 
choke. 

Miss Bellamy, having shot her bolt, didn’t appear to be 
inclined to follow it up. To tell the truth, she was a tiny 
bit ashamed of what she had said although, paradoxically 
enough, she wouldn’t have unsaid it for worlds, even had 
it been in her power to do so. It was on John’s account 
more than Mrs. Ffoulkes’ that she was ashamed. She had 
seen a good deal of John since that day when Biddy had 
brought him back with her from Mrs. Chaworth’s. 

It had become an unwritten law that he should lunch at 
Biddy’s on his “ day off,” which was Thursday, after which 
the three of them would drive out in the car into the coun¬ 
try somewhere, if the weather was favourable, or, if it was 
not, spend the afternoon at some exhibition of pictures or 
other place of entertainment, not excluding the plebeian 
cinema for which both Biddy and John confessed a weak¬ 
ness, and then he would come back to tea and dinner which 
meant that if Biddy was dining out, which occasionally 



A CERTAIN MAN 


225 


happened, he and Miss Bellamy would sit down to a tete- 
a-tete meal over which they would discuss every variety of 
subject from cabbages to kings, on some of which they 
agreed but on most of which they disputed in friendly 
fashion, continuing their arguments until it was time for 
John to go. 

Miss Bellamy had conceived a great liking for this young 
man with his broad views and his sane outlook on life, and 
more than once, since she had met Mrs. Ffoulkes, she had 
marvelled at the dissimilarity between mother and son. It 
was this dissimilarity which had driven her to the conclu¬ 
sion that the late Mr. Ffoulkes must have been an excep¬ 
tional man to have imprinted his character on his son so 
indelibly that there was little or no indication of the sur¬ 
viving parent’s personality discoverable in their joint off¬ 
spring. That was the only explanation forthcoming. 

And now she and Mrs. Ffoulkes were involved in a com¬ 
mon brawl (there was no other word for it) in which John’s 
name was bandied as a weapon of offence. That was un¬ 
pardonable, and Miss Bellamy knew it to be so if Mrs. 
Ffoulkes did not. 

“ I’m sorry you thought fit to introduce your son’s name 
into this discussion, Mrs. Ffoulkes,” she said. “ And sorry 
that I followed your example. I have a great admiration for 
him and I’m perfectly certain he would never have recom¬ 
mended Mr. Dibden to Mr. Peal unless he had been con¬ 
vinced of his trustworthiness and honesty.” 

“ Trustworthiness and honesty are excellent qualities in 
themselves but they are not confined to one walk of life. 
I’ve no doubt Biddy’s butler is trustworthy and honest 
but that would hardly justify her in going off on long 
expeditions alone with him,” said Mrs. Ffoulkes, attempting 
to rise from her chair as she spoke, in what was intended to 
be a stately manner, the effect of which was somewhat 
marred by the lowness of her seat which necessitated a 
double effort on her part before she could gain a footing. 

“ I suppose you know that Mr. Dibden’s father was a 



226 


A CERTAIN MAN 


clergyman, the same as your son,” observed Miss Bellamy 
casually. 

“ There are clergymen and clergymen,” said Mrs. Ffoulkes 
darkly, as she took her leave. 

Miss Bellamy, from behind the window curtains, watched 
her down the garden path. 

“ Cat” she remarked with fervour, as her visitor passed 
through the gate and was lost to sight. 

The recent interview had left her considerably perturbed, 
more so than she cared to own. It was not that she dis¬ 
trusted either Biddy or Roger but she was forced unwillingly 
to admit that a certain amount of truth and common sense 
lay behind Mrs. Ffoulkes’ words, offensive as those words 
had been. 

Biddy was young, rich and charming. She was also a 
widow. These were indisputable facts which could not be 
gainsaid, and a young, rich and charming widow is at the 
mercy of any adventurer who marks her down as his legiti¬ 
mate prey, especially when she is, as Biddy was, of a con¬ 
fiding and trustful nature, and unversed in the ways of this 
wicked world. 

Miss Bellamy was perfectly certain that up to now, Roger 
merely looked upon Biddy as a good comrade, but what if 
Biddy, in all innocence, put ideas into his mind which 
hitherto had not been there? The temptation, to one in his 
position, would be almost overwhelming. 

To her fevered imagination even John, staid reliable John, 
seemed to have joined the ranks of those lured by the bait 
of gold. “ My son was very attracted by Mrs. Rycroft in 
bygone days.” Those were Mrs. Ffoulkes’ actual words and 
they rang ominously in Miss Bellamy’s ears. 

The moment of panic did not last long. Her sound 
perspicacity soon reasserted itself and she was able to look 
at the question in a reasonable light. 

Things were different nowadays. Platonic friendship 
which, before the war, had, in nine cases out of ten, proved 
a dismal failure, was now a recognized fact and no one, 


A CERTAIN MAN 


227 


except people of antiquated ideas like Mrs. Ffoulkes, thought 
twice about it. Suspicious parents no longer asked a young 
man his intentions if he frequented the company of one of 
their daughters because the chances were that he had no 
intentions of a more serious nature than those of securing 
her as a dancing partner, which is not to be confounded 
with a life partner. 

Marriage, once a business, was now a pleasure, occasion¬ 
ally fleeting it is true, but none the less the voluntary choice 
of the parties chiefly concerned and not thrust upon them as 
a duty. 

So Miss Bellamy comforted herself and, if she still, in her 
heart of hearts, thought Biddy was a little foolish, she kept 
the thought to herself and steadily refused to acknowledge 
it as the offspring of her brain. 

When Biddy returned from Hine she was informed of 
Mrs. Ffoulkes’ visit in a casual manner by Miss Bellamy, 
who mentioned nothing about the purport of it but left her 
to infer that it was just a friendly call. 

“ Tiresome old idiot,” observed Biddy. “ I’m jolly glad 
I was out. I can’t think how she ever came to be John’s 
mother. They’re so absolutely different. I believe John’s 
a changeling, except the fairies couldn’t possibly have taken 
a fancy to Mrs. Ffoulkes’ real child if it was anything like 
her. John used to be very fond of me once,” she went on, 
dimpling. “ He tried to kiss me in a dark cave.” 

“ Perhaps he’s fond of you now,” suggested Miss Bellamy 
tentatively. 

Biddy looked at her in alarm. 

“ Oh, not in that way,” she said hastily. 

Which went to prove that women are not, as is popularly 
supposed, infallible judges in such cases. 



CHAPTER XV 


A couple of days later two communications from Porth 
Ros reached John, languishing in Eddis Street. 

The first was from his mother. 

Mrs. Ffoulkes was one of those people who, fastening on 
to one particular word, introduce it into their conversation 
and letters on every possible occasion regardless of its proper 
meaning. Mrs. Ffoulkes’ particular word was “ apropos ” 
and she freely interlarded her sentences with it, making it 
do duty to connect two otherwise perfectly irrelevant sub¬ 
jects; irrelevant, that is to say, to the minds of those to 
whom she communicated them, although no doubt in her 
own train of thought there was some link. 

For instance, she would say, “ I see in the paper today 
that there is some talk of another coal strike, apropos of 
which I met Mrs. Doon this morning and she tells her 
maid is leaving to be married.” 

This probably meant that the maid in question was leav¬ 
ing t,o be married to a coal miner, but Mrs. Ffoulkes gave 
no indication of the fact and left her readers or hearers to 
fill in the gap according to their fancy. 

Her letter was the first John opened, and he skimmed 
through the beginning of it, which chiefly consisted of har¬ 
rowing details of her latest symptoms and a full descrip¬ 
tion of the medicine which had been prescribed for them, 
lingering lovingly over each individual ingredient of its 
composition and explaining at length the precise result of 
the treatment and the benefit she should derive from it but 
didn’t expect she would. 

It is to be feared that her son paid but scant attention to 
this part of the epistle, and it was not until be had come 
to the end of it and read the postcript that he took any 
interest “ P t S. You’ll be sorry to hear that my breathing 
228 


A CERTAIN MAN 


229 


is very bad whenever I walk fast or climb a hill or am upset 
in any way; apropos of which your young ‘ friend/ Mr. 
Dibden, seems to be seeing a good deal of Biddy Rycroft. 
Do you think she is wise to allow it?” 

The concluding sentence was heavily underlined, with a 
second line under the word “ allow ” from which John gath¬ 
ered that he was to infer that his young friend’s conduct 
was not resented by Biddy as Mrs. Ffoulkes evidently con¬ 
sidered it should be. 

John read this postscript over two or three times with a 
puzzled frown puckering his forehead. It was obviously 
intended for more than a mere item of news else why 
should his mother lay such special stress upon it? And, if 
such was the case, what did it imply? There was a hint 
of some danger threatening which vaguely disturbed him 
and at last he threw the letter angrily across the table and 
picked up the other missive. 

This was a picture postcard of the coast line stretching 
North from the Porth Headland and, on the reverse side of 
it which, after the address was filled in, had not much room 
left for news, was written in Biddy’s sprawling handwriting, 
“ Roger and I walked to Porth Carrick on Sunday. It was 
lovely. B. L. R.” 

There was a postscript to this also, and, like the other 
postscript, it provided food for thought. “ We didn’t get 
home till nearly ten,” it said. 

So she had arrived at the stage of calling him “ Roger,” 
had she? And she took twelve mile walks with him, did 
she, and didn’t get home till nearly ten? John began to 
read between the lines of his other communication and to 
understand what it was his mother was hinting at. He was 
too dutiful a son to charge his parent directly with gossip- 
mongering and he would have denied it hotly if anybody 
had accused him of such a thing, but he wasn’t very far 
from it when, after reading Mrs. Ffoulkes’ letter again, he 
once more threw it down on the table and said “ Damn,” 
firmly and explicitly. 



230 


A CERTAIN MAN 


Mrs. Ottoway, whose entry into the room carrying the 
breakfast things coincided with this expletive, very nearly 
dropped the tray, as the single word fell upon her incredu¬ 
lous ears. 

“ Well, to be sure!” she ejaculated in tones which hovered 
uncertainly between horror and admiration; horror that 
a clergyman should use such violent language; admiration 
that he should have the courage to defy convention in such 
a way. 

John had the grace to blush. 

“ I’m sorry, Mrs. Ottoway,” he said. 

“ Well, perhaps such words as them are best kept for 
church and such like, and not flung about promiscuous,” 
she remarked. “ Parsons ’ave their troubles the same as 
other folk, but they’re expected to grin and bear ’em in 
silence. That’s where the laity ’ave the pull. A good flare 
up and ’ave done with it, I say, and it must be downright 
maddening to sit and simmer on the ’ob when all the time 
you’re itching to boil over. But there, I won’t tell the vicar 
this time. It ain’t worth even a penny postcard. I’ll save it 
till ’e comes back from ’is ’oliday.” 

John glanced at the date of the folded newspaper which 
lay beside his plate. 

“August 21st,” he groaned. “Three weeks before I go 
away for my holiday. That brings it to September 11th.” 

“ Well, you often get nice weather in September,” said 
Mrs. Ottoway encouragingly. “ The vicar’s not ’ad it very 
seasonable.” 

“ It wasn’t the weather I was thinking of,” John said dis¬ 
consolately. 

Mrs. Ottoway regarded him with a knowing look. 

“Will she ’ave gone by then?” she enquired. 

“ Oh, no. She’ll still be there,” said John innocently, 
reverting to the subject that was disturbing his mind and 
quite forgetting that his landlady knew nothing whatever 
about it. “ But such a lot can happen in three weeks, 
can’t it?” 



A CERTAIN MAN 


231 


And, even as he spoke, he knew. Like a sudden clap of 
thunder the knowledge was borne in upon him that that 
little word “ she ” represented the zenith of his aims and 
aspirations, the goal of his ambitions; that life without her 
by his side to help and cheer him on the way would be a 
barren pilgrimage, a dreary march through the desert with 
no companion to encourage him. It was as if a bandage 
had been torn away from his eyes and darkness was replaced 
by light. It was love at first sight because, until now, he 
had never seen Biddy as she appeared to him in this sudden 
revelation. The calf-love which, twelve years ago, had 
seemed so wonderful a thing was, compared to this tran¬ 
scending passion, a rush-light set against the sun. He 
knew; and knew too, as he looked back over the last few 
weeks, since the time that he had met Biddy again in his 
godmother’s drawing room, that, through all these years, 
the spark had still smouldered among the embers which he 
had thought were extinguished and had slowly but surely 
quickened into flame beneath what looked like a dead fire 
and it only needed fuel to make it break out into a 
blaze. 

The emotion was so stupendous and overwhelming that it 
left John dazed and bewildered, but as he recovered his 
senses he was conscious of another feeling, running through 
the w r onder like a black stain on the purity of snow — a 
feeling which, in its way, was as amazing as that other 
feeling, for it was one which hitherto he had never experi¬ 
enced and was so strange and unfamiliar that at first sight 
he didn’t recognise it. He had read of jealousy in books; he 
had seen it as the central pivot on which plays revolved; 
he had met with the results of it in his daily intercourse with 
all sorts and conditions of men and women, and he had con¬ 
demned it in his sermons as the cause of misery and wrong¬ 
doing, but it had all been second-hand knowledge. He had 
had no practical experience. And now, what he had so 
glibly and easily censured, the frailty he had castigated as 
a sin, had pounced upon him without a moment’s warning 



232 


A CERTAIN MAN 


and was tearing him tooth and nail until the agony of it was 
almost more than he could bear. 

“ Your young friend Mr. Dibden seems to be seeing a 
good deal of Biddy Rycroft. Do you think she is wise to 
allow it?” “ Roger and I walked to Porth Carrick on 
Sunday. It was lovely. We didn’t get home till nearly 
ten.” 

The sentences hammered at his brain with maddening reit¬ 
eration. He had lost all sense of proportion, all power of 
reasoning. The only thing that penetrated through the 
chaos of his mind was the fact that Roger was at Porth 
Ros with Biddy, walking with her, seeing her daily and, for 
all he knew to the contrary, hourly, and that he was here 
in London, miles away, out of reach of the sound of her 
voice, deprived of the sight of her face, sick with uncontrol¬ 
lable longing for her. 

Then this passion passed too, and gradually his will reas¬ 
serted itself and he was able to look facts squarely in the 
face. 

These conflicting emotions following so quickly on one 
another’s heels had, momentarily, thrown him off his bal¬ 
ance, but common sense prevailed and he took a firm grip 
of himself, though it cost him an effort to do so. 

It seemed to him as though an eternity had passed since 
he had been plunged into this welter, and glancing hur¬ 
riedly at Mrs. Ottoway to see if she had noticed anything, 
he was relieved to find her placidly engaged in laying the 
breakfast and paying no attention to him. She was in the 
middle of a sentence, the beginning of which John had not 
heard and it was apparently bearing on the subject of what 
could happen in three weeks, so he concluded that it was 
in response to his last remark and that really his lapse had 
lasted but a few seconds. 

“ . . . and that day week ’e took to his bed with pneu¬ 
monia and in less than three weeks ’e was being carried to 
’is grave,” she announced with melancholy gusto. 

Perhaps the banality of the remark did more to steady 



A CERTAIN MAN 


233 


John than anything else could have done; at any rate he 
managed to screw his face into the semblance of a smile 
and make some suitable rejoinder, but he was glad when 
Mrs. Ottoway had finished laying the table and had taken 
herself out of the room. 

He wanted to be by himself to think over this thing 
which had come to him and get his bearings. 

It was strange, he reflected, that it had all come about 
with such bewildering rapidity. He had thought that fall¬ 
ing in love was a gradual process, beginning with a loss of 
appetite and ending with a discreet avowal of affection and, 
if the lady was agreeable, orange blossoms and white satin. 
On those other occasions, those interludes between his calf¬ 
love and this, when he had imagined himself to be, if not 
actually in love, at least hovering on the brink of that con¬ 
dition, he had held the reins of his feelings tightly enough 
to retain full control of them and prevent them from getting 
out of hand and it frightened him to realise that now they 
had got the bit between their teeth and were sweeping 
him along whither they would. 

As the day wore on he managed to get his scattered wits 
into something like order and, when he had done so, to take 
a more reasonable view of the situation. 

He douched himself with the cold comfort that he was not 
the Christopher Columbus of the territory of love. Others 
had trodden the path before and had, for the most part, 
survived. He refused to think of those who had fallen 
by the way. They were the cravens who had given up the 
quest in despair, and were not worth a moment’s regret. 
Once he had arrived at a calmer state of mind he could take 
stock of his surroundings with a clarity of which he had 
been incapable at the time of his discovery. 

His fit of exaltation had given way to an attitude in 
which stern logic kept him from falling into a too-com- 
plaisant self-assurance. He repeated to himself the French 
proverb which runs, “11 y a toujours Vun qui baise et Vautre 
qui tend le jou.” He was ready enough to be “ Vun,” but 



234 


A CERTAIN MAN 


the question arose whether Biddy would be willing to be 
“ Vautre.” The recollection of that episode in the cavern 
when she had very decidedly refused to “ tender le jou ” 
recurred to his memory with unpleasant distinctness and 
he hoped it was not a portent. 

As for Roger, he had lost his head about him. In these 
post war days it meant absolutely nothing for a girl to 
call a man by his Christian name at the end of the first 
five minutes of their acquaintance, and nobody but the 
veriest prude would find anything to object to in the walk 
to Porth Carrick even though it was extended until nearly 
ten at night. To build up a romance on such flimsy grounds 
would be merely a symptom of his disorder; it had been the 
fevered fantasy of delirium. 

So he told himself in a spirit of bravado, nevertheless 
more than once during the day he got the letter from his 
mother and Biddy’s postcard out of the drawer in which 
he had concealed them and re-read the two postscripts and 
when, his work over, he was at liberty to sit down and think 
consecutively, he reviewed the situation from another aspect. 

Supposing, just for the sake of argument, that there 
was something underlying it all? Supposing that during 
these few weeks which Biddy had spent at Porth Ros her 
interest in Roger had developed into something deeper? 

John, being an honest man, faced this possibility boldly 
and, while not admitting it as a probability, owned that it 
might be so, and, if it were, that nobody was to blame except 
perhaps himself for his blindness. 

He sat in the darkening room, puffing savagely at his pipe, 
while his thoughts raced madly round in a circle, always 
returning to their starting point. If he had had Biddy’s 
postcard only he would not have given the matter a second 
thought but, in conjunction with his mother’s letter, he 
could not help feeling irrationally disquieted. Was it 
mere coincidence that he had been the recipient of those 
two communications from Porth Ros or was he expected to 
read something more into them than the words actually 



A CERTAIN MAN 


235 


written? Three weeks to go before his holiday and, as he 
had said to Mrs. Ottoway that morning, a lot can happen 
in three weeks. 

With a sudden impatient movement he got up from his 
seat and lighting the gas went over to his writing table 
where he sat down and drawing a sheet of notepaper out 
of the case placed it on the blotter in front of him. If he 
couldn’t see Biddy he could at least write to her and tell 
her of the wonderful thing which had happened to him and 
plead his cause. 

But when he came to put pen to paper he found that the 
words which, in his brain, glowed and burned became life¬ 
less and cold when they were transferred to paper and, after 
many attempts, during which he got no nearer to accom¬ 
plishing his purpose, he gave it up in despair. 

However the mere unburdening of his pent-up feelings 
had done him good and he retired to rest in a more quiescent 
frame of mind than he had thought possible earlier in the 
evening. 

Beside his bed was a small table that held his books of 
devotion and at the back of it, against the wall, stood a cru¬ 
cifix of ebony with the figure of the Christ carved in ivory. 
It was here he always knelt to say his prayers and that night 
when, worn out with the conflicting emotions of the day, 
he followed his usual custom, he could almost have fancied 
that the head of the ivory Christ, sunk down upon the 
breast, raised itself for a brief second and looked into his 
face with eyes that held a world of tenderness and pity and 
understanding in their depths. 

His common sense told him that the illusion was caused 
by the gas jet flickering in the breeze from the open window 
but, all the same, so startlingly realistic was it that he 
covered his face with his hands and, almost without being 
conscious of the fact that he did so, cried out, “ Lord, what 
wouldst thou have me to do?” and immediately, as though 
in answer to the cry, the words, “Wait thou still upon 
God,” stole upon his brain. The message came so spon- 



236 


A CERTAIN MAN 


taneously and without any volition of thought on his part 
that it really did seem to be an inspiration. 

John was by no means a visionary. He was not one of 
those people who spend their lives looking for signs. He 
was just a healthy young man, healthy in mind as well 
as body, and as such he entered into the more innocent 
pursuits of his species with zest and enjoyment. He never 
saw why, because he was a parson, he was debarred from 
taking an interest in the more mundane happenings of this 
material world, as long as they were not calculated to 
hinder the steady progress of humanity towards the spiritual 
one. He could easily, if he had allowed himself to do so, 
have settled down into a state of gloom and despondency 
at seeing all round him the misery and want and apathy of 
the dwellers in the over-crowded tenements and houses in 
the slums which are a festering sore on the face of the 
greatest city in the world, but he would not allow himself 
to do so for he knew that it was only courage and deter¬ 
mination which made it possible to carry on and that, if 
he lost those, he might as well give up. That was why, 
on those rare occasions when he got dispirited and de¬ 
pressed, his conscience smote him for neglect of duty, be¬ 
cause he considered it was a duty to be of good cheer 
and keep smiling. 

So when these words came to him so clearly that it was 
almost as if he had heard them spoken, they left an even 
deeper impression than possibly they might have done in 
the mind of one who deliberately set himself to listen and 
who waited for and expected some message. 

“ Wait thou still upon God.” 

That was all, but it was enough, and John got up from 
his knees with a feeling of quiet confidence in his heart 
which had certainly not been there before, and even after 
he had turned out the light and got into bed, the feeling 
still remained. 

Issues were not to be forced. He and Biddy and Roger 
were just three tiny cogs in the vast machinery of the world 



A CERTAIN MAN 


237 


each in their appointed place and if it was decreed that 
he and Biddy should come together so it would be and if 
not ... But that was a possibility that John was not 
going to look forward to. Sufficient for the day was the 
evil — and the good — thereof. 

Biddy’s happiness was the chief thing that mattered and 
he was prepared to immolate himself if, by so doing, he 
could secure that happiness for her. 

And presently he slept and, through the gloom of the 
room, the figure of the ivory Christ, faintly illumined by 
the light of a lamp in the street outside which glimmered 
through the uncurtained window, shone out, with a face of 
divine love and pity turned towards him. 



CHAPTER XVI 


The next morning brought a letter from John’s vicar 
which caused him almost as much mental perturbation as the 
two communications he had received the previous morning, 
for it informed him that the writer was intending to resign 
his benefice in the near future, and asked permission to put 
John’s name before the Bishop as a suitable successor to 
himself. He intended to stop until after Christmas, so 
John need not decide in a hurry but, from what the Bishop 
had already said, he was pretty certain that any nomination 
he might make would be favourably considered by that 
worthy, in whose gift the living was, indeed he, the vicar, 
had gone so far as to put forward, tentatively of course, 
John’s name as a fitting candidate for the post and the 
Bishop had not turned down the proposal. If the letter 
had come two days ago, John would have had very little 
hesitation about what answer he should make. As it was, he 
hesitated very considerably. 

The vicarage was a gloomy building in a narrow street, 
hemmed in on one side by a glue factory whence the smoke, 
and incidentally the smell, of melting bones ascended not 
only to heaven but also into the neighboring houses, and 
on the other by the parish institute, which sheltered most 
of the parochial activities and whence, at night, issued a 
confused Babel of voices from the boys’ club, the scouts’ 
headquarters, the reading-room for men (which appeared 
to contribute more voices than all the others put together), 
and the gymnasium, over which presided an ex-drill-sergeant 
with a bark worse than any bite could possibly be. 

John tried to visualise Biddy in this setting and failed 
utterly. He attempted to picture her, whose drawing-room 
was always faintly perfumed with the illusive scent of pot¬ 
pourri, sitting in an aroma of melting bones, and somehow 
she didn’t fit into the picture anywhere. It was like trying 
238 


A CERTAIN MAN 


239 


to do a jig-saw puzzle with the most important piece miss¬ 
ing. He endeavoured to imagine the face of Mrs. Pescod 
Dampier (who came down from West Kensington two 
nights a week to run a self-constituted mission which nobody 
wanted, but which nobody had the temerity to oppose), 
when she first clapped eyes on Biddy’s frocks. Mrs. Pescod 
Dampier wore clothes because it was the custom to do so, 
but for all the interest she took in them she might just as 
well have been habited in a coat of blue woad. She boasted 
that she made all her own dresses, and John was inclined 
to believe her. She reminded him of the ladies who sit at 
the feet of Eros in the middle of Piccadilly Circus, and 
who apparently spend most of their time leisurely winding 
bits of bass round the stalks of whatever flower happens 
to be in season, save that she wasn’t nearly as smart. Her 
hat, it might be surmised from its appearance, served the 
double purpose of head-covering by day and pillow by 
night. Her skirt dragged in the dirt behind and cocked 
up in front in such a way that the casual observer might 
be pardoned for jumping to entirely wrong conclusions, and, 
at the back, between it and her upper covering, there was 
generally a gap of two or three inches which displayed to all 
whom it might not concern an undergarment of gray flannel 
stretched tightly over her stays, the laces of which made 
little ridges across the surface so that John was always 
reminded of her when the verse occurred in the psalms, 
“ The ploughers ploughed upon my back, they made long 
furrows.” In cold weather the gap was concealed by what 
is known as a “ sac-coat,” a name which, in this case, was 
extremely apposite. His imagination boggled. It failed 
completely to rise to the occasion. He was left with no 
illusions on that score. It was Biddy and a pleasant vicar¬ 
age in the country with roses nodding in at the windows 
and a group of elms on the lawn under the shade of which 
people could sit and watch the tennis, or it was the vicarage 
next door to the glue factory — and no Biddy; one or the 
other. 



240 


A CERTAIN MAN 


Which shows how very little John knew of women in 
general or of the sacrifices a woman will cheerfully make 
when she really loves. 

Well, he would move in neither matter until he got down 
to Porth Ros and saw for himself how things stood between 
Roger and Biddy. Biddy should be the unconscious arbiter 
of his fate and the fates of a few thousand other folk also. 
He would ask her to marry him when he could tell her 
by word of mouth of this wonderful thing he had discovered, 
and according to what her answer was, so he would accept 
or refuse the vicar’s request to bring his name forward as 
a candidate for the living. 

He sat down directly he had swallowed his breakfast 
and answered the letter, couching his reply in non-commital 
terms; asking for time to think things over; frankly owning 
that his acceptance was contingent upon the outcome of 
certain private and family affairs and that, until he had 
settled these affairs, he was not in a position to give a 
more definite answer. 

He took the letter out to post as soon as it was written 
and the envelope directed and stamped. He hardly knew 
why he did this for it would reach its destination no earlier 
than if it went off by the country post in the afternoon 
but an impatient desire to have it gone beyond recall pos¬ 
sessed him and he listened to the slight thud it made, as 
it fell to the bottom of the pillar-box, with a satisfaction 
he found hard to explain even to himself. 

He had set the coin spinning in the air. Would it come 
down heads or tails? 

John’s complacency, however, was to receive a rude check 
before the end of the day. 

At half-past two that afternoon, when he had finished 
lunch and a pipe, he set out to pay some visits and, among 
others, he went to see a certain old Mrs. Hildyard. 

Mrs. Hildyard had reached an age when she claimed 
all the credit for being still in the land of the living and 
seemed to think that to die was simply the result of bad 



A CERTAIN MAN 


241 


management on the part of those who did so. She implied 
that death was a sure proof of mental, not physical, weak¬ 
ness and she despised those who gave way to it from the 
bottom of her heart. 

Her age went by leaps and bounds in the most startling 
fashion. Three years ago she had confessed to eighty-eight. 
Now, according to her reckoning, she was ninety-three and 
John was waiting for the not far distant time when she 
would put in a claim for royal recognition on the plea of 
being a centenarian. 

She occupied a room in the house of a married grand¬ 
daughter and, although she was kindly treated and well 
cared for, she passed a somewhat lonely existence for her 
grand-daughter was the mother of a large and annually 
increasing family and had little time to spare for sitting 
down and talking, and the old lady, in spite of her boasts, 
was too feeble to leave her room and join the party down¬ 
stairs. 

A visitor therefore was a God-send, and John made a 
point of going to see her regularly once a fortnight, and his 
visits were an event in her dull life, for, since she had “ got 
no lettering,” as she expressed it, she could only while 
away the long hours of solitariness by looking at the pictures 
in the illustrated papers and ruminating over the past or, 
tenaciously clinging to her pet theory, planning for the 
future with an optimistic disregard of its probable curtail¬ 
ment, as far as this world was concerned, before her plans 
could be carried out. 

John sat and gossiped with her for half an hour then 
rose to take his leave. 

“ I’ll come and see you again before I go away,” he said 
cheerfully, forgetting that he had omitted to mention the 
fact that he was only going for a holiday and, to his con¬ 
sternation, the old lady immediately dissolved in tears. 

“ Nobody never told me you was going to leave us, 
Sir,” wailed she disconsolately. “ What’ll I do when you’ve 
gone? There’ll be nobody to come and see me then.” 



242 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“ But I’m only going for a holiday, Mrs. Hildyard,” ex¬ 
plained John. “ I shall be back again in three weeks.” But 
the old lady would have none of it. 

“ You ain’t coming back again, I know. Them ’eathen 
’ave got ’old of you. I know they ’ave.” 

“ Them what?” enquired John, in his agitation disre¬ 
garding grammar. 

“ Them ’eathen ’oo proper get the Gospel,” sobbed Mrs. 
Hildyard in an abandonment of grief. “ They’ve proper got 
you right enough. Em was telling me about the meeting 
they ’eld last week, and ’ow they was ’ollering out for new 
blood, which well they may do, being cannibals.” 

“ Em ” was Mrs. Hildyard’s grand-daughter and John 
could only suppose that she had been at a meeting which 
had been held the previous week on behalf of the Society 
for the Propagation of the Gospel and had been giving her 
relative a not too lucid report of the proceedings which 
had left her with a totally wrong impression of their aims 
and objects. 

The poor old thing was so thoroughly convinced that she 
had hit upon the truth that it took John quite a long while 
to calm her, but he was able to do so at length. 

“ You promise me you’re coming back,” she said, holding 
out a pair of trembling old hands towards him. 

“ I promise you, Mrs. Hildyard,” he assured her. 

“ For good,” she persisted. 

John hesitated. In the present uncertain state of his 
affairs he felt he could not give her any definite assurance on 
this point. 

“ I shan’t always be here, you know, Mrs. Hildyard,” he 
said at last. “I — I might want to — to better myself one 
of these days,” he concluded with a rush, using the only 
language he knew she would understand. To tell her “ he 
might get preferment” was no better than speaking to her 
in a foreign tongue. 

If he had thought to pacify the old lady by this guarded 
reply he was greatly mistaken. She merely saw in it a con- 



A CERTAIN MAN 


243 


firmation of her original fears and started to weep again 
with renewed vigour. 

“ You ain’t coming back again,” she reiterated. “I 
shan’t want to live when you’re gone. There won’t be 
nothing to live for. They all go, all as I care for. I’ve 
neither chick nor child left. Seven I bore and I’ve buried 
’em every one, except my boy George as went for a sailor, 
and ’e was drownded at sea so I couldn’t bury ’im ’owever 
much I might want.” 

“ You’ve got your grand-daughter, Mrs. Hildyard,” John 
reminded her. 

“ Oh,” Mrs. Hildyard said, in tones of the deepest con¬ 
tempt. “ Yus, I’ve got ’er for what she’s worth.” 

And John made his escape while she was too much en¬ 
grossed in the defects of her grand-daughter’s character 
to notice his departure. He tried to derive some amusement 
from the recent conversation but it was a half-hearted 
attempt for his conscience was twitting him rather badly. 

Once, in France, he had been present at a court-martial. 
The prisoner being a young officer, hardly more than a 
boy, who, when the battalion had been suddenly ordered 
to move up to the front, had been missing. It had tran¬ 
spired in the course of the evidence, that he had gone off, 
without leave, to the town four miles away from the rest- 
billets, and, when he should have been marching up with 
his platoon to the trenches, was with a woman who event¬ 
ually was proved to be a German spy and whose mission it 
was to lure silly young idiots like this one to besmirch 
not only their morals but their honour. 

The incident came into John’s mind as he walked home¬ 
wards. He saw again the boy’s white strained face as 
the damning evidence piled itself up. He saw the lips 
with the blood upon them where the lad had bitten them 
in his agony of mind. He saw the shaking hand wiping 
the heavy beads of perspiration from the forehead, and he 
heard once again the sharp cry of “ Mother,” that rang 
through the room when the verdict was given; the appeal 



244 


A CERTAIN MAN 


for help to the one who never, in all his young life, failed 
him, and who was in far-away England knowing nothing of 
her boy’s Gethsemane. 

“ He turned his back on duty for a woman’s kisses,” 
whispered the voice of conscience in John’s ear. 

“ She was a vile woman. Her kisses were bought ones,” 
John answered his tormenter angrily. “How dare you 
compare her with Biddy?” 

“She was a woman,” chuckled conscience, “and I never 
mentioned Biddy’s name.” 

“ You were thinking of her.” 

“ I plead guilty.” 

“ Besides, the cases are not parallel. The boy was selling 
his fellow creatures’ lives.” 

“ And haven’t fellow creatures souls? Is it worse to 
sell their bodies than their souls?” 

Of course if John hadn’t by this time worked himself 
into a thoroughly morbid state of mind he would have 
seen the absurdity of the comparison, but Mrs. Hildyard 
had set it busily working in a new direction and it needed 
adjustment before it could get into its proper stride. 

It seemed so impossible a thing to expect that Biddy 
would ever consent to leave her luxurious life and come and 
take up her abode in the gloomy vicarage next door to the 
glue factory that that solution of the question never even 
occurred to him. 

His conversation with Mrs. Hildyard had moved him 
more profoundly than he cared to acknowledge. He was 
too honest to try and pretend he was not popular among 
the people with whom he came in daily contact. He knew 
they liked him. He knew it from the way they came to 
him with all their difficulties and troubles, little as well 
as big. They did not confine their confidences to religious 
questions either. Domestic, legal and medical advice was 
sought from him, the latter often of a most embarrassing 
nature, and if it was not always taken, the compliment 
was none the less sincere. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


245 


He knew they liked him, but until this afternoon he 
had not realised fully what his going away would mean to 
some of them, and the realisation of it stirred him to his 
depths. How could he even think of deserting them? He 
felt it would be like a captain deserting his ship. The mes¬ 
sage that had come to him last night so clearly and unmis¬ 
takably came once again. 

“ Wait thou still upon God.” 

And once again that blessed peace descended upon him 
and lapped his soul like a river of water in a thirsty land. 

It was not for him to force the hand of God. In time 
the answer to that cry of his, “Lord, what wouldst thou 
have me to do?” would be vouchsafed and until that time 
he must be content to wait. 

The vicar returned from his holiday on September the 
9th, which was a Saturday, and on the Monday following 
John went away. There wasn’t much opportunity of dis¬ 
cussing the subject of his letter in the short interval. Sun¬ 
day was a day when time was at a premium, and though 
John, as was usual, had supper at the vicarage, both the 
junior curate and the vicar’s wife, not to mention his son 
and two daughters, were present and prevented any private 
conversation. However, the vicar did find a moment in 
which to speak alone to his subordinate and ask him if he 
had come to any decision. 

“ If you don’t mind, I’d rather let it stand over until I 
come back,” John said nervously. “ You see there are my 
— my people to think of before I can come to any final 
decision.” 

The vicar, a kindly little man with very definite ideas 
on what he was pleased to call “ the sanctity of home ties,” 
beamed at John approvingly through his glasses. 

“ You wish to consult your mother,” he said. “ Very 
right and proper, my dear Ffoulkes. A boy’s best friend, 
eh?” 

John let it go at that. He couldn’t very well explain to the 



246 


A CERTAIN MAN 


vicar that the reason for the delay in giving an answer 
rested, not with his mother, but with somebody quite 
different. 

Before, when John had started off for his holiday, he had 
done so with the blessed assurance that he was going to 
thoroughly enjoy himself among the old familiar haunts. 
This time he was more than a little dubious. In one direc¬ 
tion or another the whole course of his life was to be altered 
by what the next few days brought forth and he felt restless 
and unsettled. 

With a tremendous effort of will he had managed to pre¬ 
vent himself from dwelling on the future during the three 
weeks that had elapsed between that morning when he had 
hit upon that wonderful discovery that he was in love with 
Biddy and his leaving London, but now that he was actually 
upon the journey he found it impossible to keep his mind 
off the subject. 

Each revolution of the wheels of the train in which he 
travelled was bringing him nearer to the moment of decision, 
to the moment when it would be shown him what he was to 
do, and he had to summon all his stock of courage to his 
aid to go forward and meet it. The train steamed into Hine 
station and drew up slowly, and John put his head out of 
the window. 

He had seen a little group composed of his aunt, Biddy 
and Roger, as his carriage slid up the platform and he 
looked over the heads of the people crowding out of the 
other compartments to see if he could attract their attention. 

It was Biddy who saw him first and waved a brown paw. 
John returned the salutation and the next minute the three 
who had come to meet him had pushed their way through 
the throng and were greeting him each in their own particu¬ 
lar manner. 

His aunt kissed him on the cheek almost shyly. She 
was not used to public demonstrations of affection and she 
felt awkward and constrained in the presence of the other 
two. If she had given way to the deeper emotions which 



A CERTAIN MAN 


247 


welled up in her heart at the sight of him, she would, regard¬ 
less of who might be standing by, have thrown her arms 
round his neck and embraced him warmly, but effusiveness 
was foreign to her nature and she could not summon it to 
her aid at will. She would have given worlds to be able to 
express her pleasure at seeing him again by some show of 
affection, some special proof of her contentment at his 
return after his long absence, but that absurd feeling of shy¬ 
ness, that dread of a public display of sentiment, held her 
back. 

Biddy suffered from no such scruples. She announced her 
delight at his arrival in unmeasured terms and in a voice 
which she made no attempt to lower. The other people on 
the platform were just so many nonentities who didn’t mat¬ 
ter two straws. She took them as little into account as she 
would have taken into account a group of wax figures. 

“ I’d love to kiss you, too,” she observed in clear tones. 
“ I suppose it wouldn’t do though. Somebody might sneak 
to your bishop and then there’d be trouble. Bishops are so 
fussy and particular, aren’t they? It is ripping to see you 
though. It does seem a pity not to mark the occasion. 
Isn’t it ripping, Man Friday?” 

“ I should jolly well think it was,” said Roger, gripping 
John by the hand. “ How are you?” 

“ Oh, I’m all right. No need to ask how you are,” re¬ 
turned John, and indeed there was not. 

The two months had worked wonders in Roger. His face 
was tanned to a deep olive-brown, his eyes were bright and 
sparkling, and the hair rippling back from his forehead 
seemed to have borrowed some of the sunlight for there 
were little flecks of gold among the dark of it. And besides 
all this, there was an air of being master of his own soul 
which had been lacking before. There was an atmosphere 
of youthful virility about him which was extraordinarily 
attractive, quite apart from his features which, without 
being too regular, were sufficiently good to make him well 
worth looking at. The spasm of jealousy which had gripped 



248 


A CERTAIN MAN 


John when he had had that letter from his mother had 
been only a transitory one which had long since died a 
natural death. He was too loyal and true hearted himself 
to harbour doubt and distrust for long, especially against 
one to whom he had already given such proofs of confidence 
and trust. His simple creed was that if you trusted a man 
at all, you must do it thoroughly and completely. 

So it was not difficult for him to forget that he had ever 
had that hour of madness and to meet Roger as though it 
had never been, and indeed as he felt the warm clasp of 
his hand and saw the unaffected pleasure in his honest eyes 
and heard the note of welcome in his voice, he recognised 
that the incident had not diminished one whit his very 
real affection for the boy he had befriended so whole¬ 
heartedly. It was just a phase he had passed through and it 
was over and done with, never to return, whatever might 
befall. 

It was Roger who proposed that John should walk home 
with him and Biddy by the cliff path, leaving Miss Gunning 
to drive round with the luggage, but when his aunt said 
quietly, “ Your mother is waiting for you, John,” he 
abandoned the project and went in the fly without a word 
of protest, and watched the other two set out alone together 
as though he didn’t mind a bit, although he was longing to 
join them. 

Perhaps he was a tiny bit disappointed that they acqui¬ 
esced in the arrangement so calnfiy and didn’t attempt to 
dispute his decision, but, if so, he was careful not to allow 
it to appear in his manner, but waved his hand in a 
friendly fashion which successfully concealed his inner 
feelings when the carriage presently passed them on the 
road. 

“ I hope you like Roger, Aunt Sibyl,” John said when 
they had left them behind. 

Miss Gunning hesitated the fraction of 'a second before 
she replied. 

“ Yes, I do like him,” she said, then, with apparent incon- 



A CERTAIN MAN 


249 


sequence, added, “ But I wish Biddy wasn’t quite so well 
off.” 

“ Why?” enquired John, though he knew perfectly well 
what she was driving at. 

Miss Gunning, for some inexplicable reason, had a child¬ 
like faith in her sister’s judgment and dutifully followed her 
lead and echoed her opinions in all matters except those in 
which her nephew was concerned. In those she refused to 
be coerced and it was because Roger was a friend of John’s, 
or at any rate a protege of his, that she hesitated. John 
evidently liked Mr. Dibden; Mrs. Ffoulkes quite as evi¬ 
dently disliked him, and she hadn’t quite made up her 
mind whose view to adopt with regard to him. 

So when John asked why she wished Biddy wasn’t quite 
so well off in that peremptory manner, she was a little non¬ 
plussed to know how to answer him. 

“ It’s a great temptation to a young man in his position,” 
she said at length. 

“ What d’you mean?” 

Poor Miss Gunning began to wish she had let John walk. 
She didn’t altogether appreciate this cross-examination, and 
regretted she had introduced Biddy’s name into the 
conversation. 

“ Mr. Dibden sees a good deal of Biddy,” she said 
deprecatingly. 

“ D’you mean you think he’s after her for her money?” 
demanded John pointblank. 

“ No, oh no, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,” his 
aunt replied hurriedly, painfully aware that she had gone 
too far already and making a desperate effort to retrace her 
steps. 

“ But you must mean something,” persisted John. 

Miss Gunning, who, by this time, was reduced to such a 
pitch of nervousness that she didn’t quite know what she 
did mean, fluttered uneasily and, clinging despairingly to the 
maxim that silence is golden, said nothing. If she had 
been one of the crying sort she would, at this juncture, have 



250 


A CERTAIN MAN 


burst into tears, so bitterly disappointed was she that the 
first half hour of John’s arrival, a time she had been looking 
forward to and planning for for weeks past, should be spoiled 
for her, and she wished with all her heart that she had 
kept her mouth shut and had not made that uncalled for 
remark about Biddy. 

She was thankful that John didn’t insist on her explain¬ 
ing what she meant for she would have been hard put to it 
to satisfy him, and she would have scorned to shift the 
blame on to his mother’s shoulders which was the only way 
she could have got out of it. 

“ Naturally Roger sees a good deal of Biddy,” he said, 
as Miss Gunning remained silent. “ He owes her a lot.” 

And then, to her relief, the subject was dropped and, for 
the remainder of the drive, they discoursed on ordinary 
topics and no further reference was made to either Biddy 
or Roger. 



CHAPTER XVII 


“ How brown your neck is. I can’t imagine why, con¬ 
sidering it’s rained steadily every day for the past week,” 
observed Biddy, regarding Roger with a critical eye. 

It was nine days after John’s arrival and the three of 
them had taken advantage of a sudden burst of warm sunny 
weather, following on a wet cold day, to go along the sands 
at low tide in the direction of Ferrier Bay and settle them¬ 
selves in the rocks in a spot where the tripper was not 
likely to intrude upon them. Roger was there because Mr. 
Peal, that most considerate of masters, had dispensed with 
his services for the morning. 

Biddy was seated on a boulder with Roger stretched on 
the sand at her feet, lying flat on his back with his hands 
clasped under his head, while John, a couple of yards away, 
had propped a sketching block against a flat bit of rock 
with a convenient ledge underneath and was endeavouring, 
very unsuccessfully, to transfer to paper the scene which 
spread before their eyes. 

The two men were wearing shorts and Roger had dis¬ 
carded the sweater he had started out in, and the sleeves 
of his white flannel shirt were rolled up above the elbows 
and the shirt itself open at the neck showing the upper 
part of a chest burnt brown with exposure to the wind and 
sun. 

He sat up at Biddy’s remark. 

“ I hope you aren’t suggesting that the colour of my neck 
is due to any other than perfectly natural causes,” he said 
severely. 

“ What d’you mean?” asked Biddy. 

“ You seem to be inferring that the rain ought to have 
removed the brown, which implies that you imagined it to 
be superficial and not indigenous to the soil,” Roger 
complained. 


251 


252 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“ Like the Irish factor’s daughter,” put in John, retiring 
a few steps from the work of art upon which he was 
engaged in order to reassure himself that it was recog¬ 
nisable as a seascape and not liable to be mistaken for the 
picture of a ploughed field. 

“ Who’s she?” enquired Roger. “Tell us about her. 

“ Never mind your rotten old sketch,” Biddy said. “ It’s 
like nothing on earth anyhow.” 

“ Of course it isn’t, because it’s meant to be the sea,” 
John remarked indignantly. 

“ Glad you put in the ‘ meant’ ” Roger observed lazily. 
“ Chuck it into its native element and come and sit down 
and tell us about the factor’s daughter. What is a factor, 
by the way?” 

“ Something in a sum,” said Biddy with an air of superi¬ 
ority. “ Fancy your not knowing that, and you last from 
school, too.” 

“ Do pull yourself together and use what little common 
sense you have been endowed with,” Roger said. “ How 
could something in a sum have a daughter?” 

“ ’Sh,” ordered Biddy, lifting an admonishing forefinger. 
“ Come and sit down, John, and begin. Now,” as John 
threw himself on the sand at Roger’s side. “ The story of 
the factor’s daughter. It sounds like the Arabian Nights, 
doesn’t it?” 

“ ’Sh, yourself,” said Roger. “ Fire away, Padre.” 

“ The story of the factor’s daughter,” began John im¬ 
pressively. 

“ Hurrah,” said Biddy, clapping her hands. 

“ Will you ’ush and let the gentleman begin,” remarked 
Roger, jerking her skirt. 

“ Once upon a time there was a factor who had two 
beautiful daughters,” John said, “ and they were invited to 
a party at the house of a lord, so they ordered new dresses 
as it was a special occasion. I ought to tell that it was in 
Ireland that all this happened.” 

“ All what?” asked Biddy. “ That’s not the end, is it?” 



A CERTAIN MAN 


253 


“ No. It’s right at the beginning. Well, the night of the 
party came, and the lord and his lady were receiving their 
guests in the big hall, and the band was playing and the 
people had started to dance, but the two beautiful daugh¬ 
ters of the factor—” 

“ I do wish I knew what a factor was,” interpolated 
Biddy. 

“ The two beautiful daughters of the factor were absent. 
And the lord said to his lady, ‘ How is it that the 
Miss Murphys have not come to our party when they 
accepted?’ ” 

“ Was Murphy their name?” asked Biddy interestedly. 

“ Even so,” John told her. “ And his lady said ‘ I 
haven’t an idea,’ and just at that moment the butler—” 

“ What was his name?” enquired Biddy. 

“ The butler,” continued John, ignoring the question, 
“ flung open the door and bawled out ‘ Miss Murphy and 
Miss Moira Murphy.’ ‘ You’re late,’ snapped the lord, who 
was rather irascible. ‘ Oh, my lord, oh, my lady,’ said Miss 
Murphy. ‘ Pray forgive us, but the fact is that the dress¬ 
maker only sent home our new gowns just in time for us to 
get into them and when sister came to put hers on, it was 
cut square and she’d only washed for a V.’ ” 

“ But as far as I can make out. I’m suspected of not 
having even gone to the length of washing for a V,” grum¬ 
bled Roger. “ I don’t like that story.” 

“ Well, you can take it or leave it,” John said affably. 

“ Then I’ll leave it, thank you,” returned Roger promptly. 
“ Come and bathe, Padre, and I’ll prove to you what a cruel 
aspersion has been cast upon my character.” 

“ Can’t,” said John. “ I haven’t brought my bathing 
suit along, and anyway, the tide’s too far out. I don’t like 
it when it’s as low as this. There are beastly cross-currents. 
I shouldn’t recommend you to go in now.” 

“Bosh!” Roger said contemptuously. “I’ve often been 
in when the tide’s been quite as low as it is at the present 
moment. I’m going anyhow.” 



254 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“ I shouldn’t. Honestly I shouldn’t,” said John earnestly. 
“ It’s a mug’s game to go running risks.” 

“ My dear old Jeremiah, I’m not going to run any risks,” 
declared Roger. “ As Teddy Payne, wasn’t it, used to say, 
I’m very fond of you but I’m passionately in love with 
myself. I didn’t lug a bathing suit and a great heavy towel 
all the way here for the pleasure of carrying them home 
again.” 

“ Roger! Don’t be an ass,” Biddy said anxiously. “ It’s 
not good enough.” 

“ My dear Biddy, it’s as safe as houses,” Roger said 
obstinately. “I’ll be darned careful, I give you my word 
I will.” 

Biddy shrugged her shoulders. 

“Talk about wilful woman!” she exclaimed. “A wilful 
woman’s left at the post when she’s matched against a pig¬ 
headed man.” 

“ Well, good-bye, if you never see me again,” Roger said 
flippantly, gathering up his bathing suit and towel and 
throwing them over his arm. 

“ Oh, I wish you wouldn’t talk like that,” Biddy said pas¬ 
sionately, but Roger was already sauntering away to find 
a convenient rock behind which to undress and, if he heard 
her appeal, paid no heed to it. 

“ Is it really dangerous, John?” she asked as Roger dis¬ 
appeared from view. There was a little nervous tremour 
in her voice which did not escape his notice, and he looked 
up at her curiously. 

“ I shouldn’t get the wind up, Biddy, if I were you,” he 
said, smiling reassuringly at her. “ I don’t know what 
Roger’s like as a swimmer, but I expect he knows what he’s 
capable of. Besides, it may be perfectly all right. The 
currents vary tremendously. One can never be sure about 
them. There may be practically none at all today.” 

“ Oh, but I wish he wouldn’t,” Biddy said disconsolately. 
“ I wish he wasn’t so — so damned obstinate. I’m sorry, 
John, but I simply must use bad language. Why didn’t 



A CERTAIN MAN . . .. 


255 


we urge him to bathe, then he’d probably have refused to. 
I don’t think I can bear to watch him. I’ll go home. No 
I won’t. I couldn’t bear not to watch him.” 

John picked up a stone lying on the sand beside him and 
flung it aimlessly seawards. 

“ Would you be nervous if it were I that was going to 
ibathe and not Roger?” he said reflectively. 

His back was toward Biddy so he didn’t see the hasty 
glance she threw in his direction before she replied. 

“ Of course I’d be nervous, John. I’d simply hate it, 
only — ” she broke off and began to scrabble in the sand 
with the point of her parasol. 

“ Only what?” asked John encouragingly. 

“ Well, you’re — different somehow.” 

“ How do you mean, different?” 

“ You’re not stubborn. I should feel, if you were being 
perverse, as Roger is now, that it wasn’t just desire to 
assert your independence that was at the bottom of your 
perversity but that you had some sound reason for acting 
as you did.” 

John swung round so that he no longer sat with his back 
to Biddy but at right angles to her so that he could see her 
face. She wasn’t looking at him but at the tip of her para¬ 
sol, but he knew she couldn’t fail to notice his altered 
position out of the corner of her eye. 

“ All the same,” he said, “ in your heart of hearts you 
admire his stubbornness. Oh yes you do,” as Biddy would 
have protested. “ You women are all alike. You think 
obstinacy in a man is a sign of strength, and perversity a 
mark of will power. Roger’s a stiff-necked individual.” 

“ I thought you — liked Roger,” she said in a low voice. 

“ So I do,” John said whole-heartedly. “ I do more than 
just like him. I’m awfully fond of him, but that doesn’t 
prevent my seeing his faults and what you rightly describe 
as his ‘ damned obstinacy,’ is not the least of them. If it is 
not cured soon he’ll be up against it all his life and a thing 
like that doesn’t stand still. It grows with age and, in. 


256 


A CERTAIN MAN 


time, developes into a callous disregard of the feelings and 
wishes of everybody but oneself. It forms a hard crust 
over the heart which it would take a sledge hammer to 
break. It’s just because I’m fond of Roger that I want 
to smash that stubbornness of his which he calls self- 
respect and you, probably, strength of character.” 

“ I think you’re very unjust,” Biddy said tremulously. 
“ It was nothing but his stubbornness, his refusal to give in, 
which helped Roger to win through.” 

“ There you are, you see. You’re holding it up as a 
virtue now. What did I tell you?” 

“ Well, isn’t it?” demanded Biddy fiercely. 

“ In moderation perhaps, yes. But an exaggerated virtue 
can assume the attributes of a vice, you know,” John said. 
“ You’re a little inconsistent, Biddy, for just now you were 
leading me to infer that it was a virtue in me that I was 
not stubborn. Or was I mistaken and did you really mean 
a vice?” 

“ Oh don’t badger me, John,” Biddy said imploringly. 
“ I’m simply terrified of Roger bathing in case anything 
happens. You frightened me saying that about the cur¬ 
rents at low tide.” 

John regarded her searchingly for a few seconds. Why 
should she be so terrified at Roger’s extremely problematical 
danger? It wasn’t like Biddy to show signs of nerves. 

“ Biddy,” he said at length, “ I’ve been your pal for 
twelve years even if we did lose sight of one another. 
You’ve known Roger four months. Supposing — I’m only 
supposing mind — that you had to choose one and only one 
of us as a — a friend, which one would it be?” 

Biddy looked at him with startled eyes. 

“ But that’s a ridiculous question, John,” she said, her 
breath coming quickly as though she had been running. 
“ I’ve not got to choose.” 

“ All right, dear,” John said, patting the hand which lay 
clenched upon her lap. “ I was only supposing, you know. 
Of course it was a ridiculous question.” 



A CERTAIN MAN. 257 

He got up as he spoke, and walked away from her with 
a laugh that did not ring altogether true. 

“ I’ll go and see what Roger’s up to,” he added. 

“ John. Come here. I want to talk to you.” 

He turned obediently and retraced the few steps he had 
taken and, when he reached Biddy’s side, stood there with 
a queer little smile upon his face waiting for her to speak. 

“ John,” she said, after a slight pause, “ what did you 
mean exactly when you asked me just now which I would 
choose as a friend if I had to choose between you and 
Roger?” 

“ Oh, I don’t know,” he said wearily. “ I was just being 
— foolish, I suppose, that was all.” 

Biddy shook her head. 

“ I don’t think it was quite a fair question, John,” she 
said gently but with a hint of reproach in her voice. “ How 
can I answer it and yet, if I don’t you’ll go imagining 
things that — perhaps don’t exist.” 

“ You’re right,” he said forcing his words out with an 
effort. “ It wasn’t a fair question and there’s no need to 
answer it.” 

There was no need because she had answered it already 
though she was unconscious that she had done so. 

She sat there looking at John with eyes that held a mute 
appeal in them to probe no deeper lest he should guess her 
secret, that pitiful little secret that she had locked up in her 
breast, and which she herself had, as yet, only half acknowl¬ 
edged. She could not affirm yet her pride forbade her to 
deny it entirely. She did not attempt to deceive herself as 
to the purport of the question that had been put to her. 
It was not mere idle curiosity that had prompted it. There 
was more behind it than that. It would never have been 
put unless John had suspected something and, if that were 
so, how badly she must have guarded her secret. Her 
cheeks dyed crimson at the thought and, without knowing 
that she did so, she covered them with the palms of her 
hands to try to hide the tell-tale blush. 



258 


A CERTAIN MAN 


If John needed any confirmation of his suspicions Biddy 
supplied it in that natural impulse and he turned his head 
away lest it should seem that he was spying on her. 

“ I’ll go and find Roger,” he said dully. “ I expect he’s 
bathing the other side of George’s Island.” 

George’s Island was the name given locally to a couple 
of huge rocks which stood out on the shore about twenty 
yards from one another. At low tide they were accessible 
but when the sea was up they were surrounded by water. 
So tall were they that the tops of them were green with 
grass and great patches of campion found a foothold there. 
Who or what the “ George ” was who gave them their name 
was lost in the mazes of antiquity. Probably he was some 
old smuggler who used them as his stronghold and lit on 
their summits the bonfires which would allure ships to their 
doom. 

It was round the right-hand one of these that Roger had 
disappeared and John followed in the same direction, com¬ 
pelling himself to stroll quietly along, hands in pockets, so 
as, if possible, to hide from Biddy the tumult raging in his 
breast. 

She watched him go with an expression in which bewilder¬ 
ment, pity, and a scarcely defined fear struggled for 
mastery. 

That sudden, unexpected question had caught her una¬ 
wares. She knew she had hurt him and was hurt herself 
in the knowledge. What she did not know as she watched 
him move slowly away with that palpably assumed air of 
unconcern was that, all unconsciously, she had, in those 
brief minutes, altered the course not only of one man’s life 
but also of the lives of several hundreds of men and women 
in the crowded slums of the East End, whom she had never 
seen and about whom she neither knew nor cared. 

Round the corner of George’s Island John came upon 
Roger, naked and unashamed, sheltered behind a rampart 
of rocks busily engaged in drying himself. It was evident 
that he had had his bathe and returned from it in safety. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


259 


“You were a mug not to come,” he called out with a 
cheerful grin, as John approached. “It was simply 
glorious.” 

John seated himself on a convenient boulder and pulling 
out his pipe filled and lit it. No one, to look at him, 
would have guessed that he had just passed through a 
crisis in his life; that, in the last five minutes, he had 
been pulled up sharply and turned aside from the pleasant 
path in which his feet were set, into a narrow way paved 
with jagged stones that cut and bruised his feet and in 
which there was no room for two to walk abreast so that, 
perforce, he must journey alone. 

“ You frightened Biddy,” he said. 

“ I didn’t frighten her. It was you,” Roger retorted in 
muffled tones from the depths of the shirt he was pulling 
over his head. “ Talking all that piffle about currents and 
running risks! There wasn’t the vestige of a current and as 
for running risks, why, good heavens! One runs more 
risks in one’s bath every morning. You’re sitting on my 
shorts if you don’t mind. Thanks,” as John threw the 
articles in question at him. 

When he had completed his toilette he came and sat down 
by John’s side and slipped an arm through his. 

“ I say, John — You don’t mind my calling you John, 
do you? It sounds more like the continuance of brotherly 
love,” he went on with a little half-shy laugh. “ It was a 
bit of luck for me that Biddy passed me on to you.” 

“ Why?” asked John. 

He wondered what on earth had made him seek com¬ 
panionship just at the very moment when he most wanted 
to be alone and think things over and, moreover, the com¬ 
panionship of the man whom he might be expected to feel 
least disposed to meet at this time. He was vaguely sur¬ 
prised that there was not a recurrence of that burst of 
insane jealousy which had swept over him on the receipt of 
that letter from his mother. Envy there was, it is true, 
but it was the envy that an old person feels for a young one 



260 


A CERTAIN MAN 


or an invalid for one in robust health. Neither hatred, 
malice nor any uncharitableness had part in its composition. 
Since he had come into personal contact with Roger once 
more he had realised again that curious magnetism which 
the latter possessed for him and which had attracted him so 
strongly when he had first met him in London. 

There was something disarming about Roger which put 
him outside the pale of criticism. The rough usage he had 
received at the hands of his fellow men, their neglect, their 
suspicion, their hardness, had not made him, in his turn, 
either neglectful, suspicious or hard. He was like Biddy in 
that respect. He never nursed resentment against the world 
at large because certain members of it had wronged him. 
He had emerged unscathed from the fiery furnace and there 
was not even the smell of burning as a reminder of the 
ordeal through which he had passed. 

So John, because he was too generous to do otherwise, 
did not steel his heart against his unconscious rival but 
deliberately yielded himself up to the power of the spell 
which Roger cast round him. 

“ Why was it a bit of luck for you that Biddy passed you 
on to me?” he asked again. 

Roger removed his arm from inside John’s and put it 
instead round the other’s neck. 

“ You blessed old simpleton,” he said affectionately. 
“ Don’t be so confoundedly unassuming. Biddy could 
never have done for me what you have. Wasn’t it you who 
got me my job with my present boss? Wasn’t it you who 
took me, a stranger, in, and fed and clothed me? Wasn’t 
it you who made a man of me again, who gave me back my 
self-respect? You know it was. I owe Biddy an eternal 
debt of gratitude for it, because it made it possible for me 
to accept things that otherwise I could never have 
accepted.” 

“ Why couldn’t you?” 

“ Oh, I don’t know. A man can take things from a man 
that he couldn’t from a woman.” 



A CERTAIN MAN 


261 


“ One can’t lay down a hard and fast rule about a thing 
of that sort,” John said with conviction. “ We thrashed the 
matter out once before, if you remember.” 

“ I remember you trotted out a lot of antediluvian argu¬ 
ments about woman having been created as a helpmeet for 
man but, as far as I can recollect, they weren’t very con¬ 
vincing. The manners and customs of the Garden of Eden 
would hardly conform to the usages of modern society. 
Hadn’t we better go and find Biddy and get her to identify 
my corpse?” 

Roger withdrew his arm from John’s neck and lowered 
himself off the rock on which he was sitting. 

“ Come on, I’ll race you,” he said. 

John got up slowly. 

“ It wouldn’t be a fair race,” he said. “ I carry eight 
years more than you.” 

“I’ll give you a start then,” Roger said condescendingly. 

“ I can’t win even with a start,” John said, with a shade 
of bitterness in his voice. 

“ You don’t know till you try,” urged Roger. 

“ I have tried,” John said with finality. 

Any further argument was put an end to by Biddy’s 
appearance upon the scene. 

“ Hello,” Roger shouted. “ Come to help John do first 
aid?” 

“ You’re a beast, Roger,” Biddy said trenchantly. “Here 
have I been fretting myself to fiddle-strings imagining that 
John was all this time vainly attempting to rescue you from 
a watery grave and you’ve been calmly gossiping behind a 
rock.” 

“ I’ve also been dressing behind a rock,” Roger informed 
her. “ It’s a most frightfully risky thing to shoot suddenly 
round a corner in these parts without sounding the ‘ take 
cover.’ Five minutes earlier and you’d have found me 
covered with nothing but confusion!” 

“ And from what I know of you that wouldn’t have gone 
far,” observed Biddy. “ You aren’t what I should call over- 



'262 


A CERTAIN MAN 


dressed now. Hadn’t you better put on your sweater? 
You’ll catch cold.” 

“ Thanks for the tip — helpmeet,” Roger said with a 
sideways grin at John. 

“ Don’t call me names,” said Biddy severely. 

“ There you are, you see,” Roger told John triumphantly. 

It went out with the flood. Who was right, you or I?” 

John was already walking away to where Biddy stood 
waiting for them so he didn’t notice how Roger, as he 
stopped behind to collect his bathing things, dropped his 
air of laughing gaiety directly his back was turned, as if it 
were a relief to get rid of the necessity for make-believe 
for a few moments. 

Had he been conscious of the sudden change of demeanour 
he must have wondered what had become of the light¬ 
hearted youth who had joked and trifled so carelessly just 
now, for his place was taken by somebody quite different, 
somebody who looked out across the sparkling sea with eyes 
that held little in them of either laughter or gaiety. 

He would have found food for thought too in the effort 
Roger made, as he followed in his wake, to throw off his 
abstraction and assume again the mask of abandon with 
which he concealed his real feelings. On the homeward 
way it was Roger who kept the ball of conversation rolling. 
The other two were somewhat silent for each of them was 
uncomfortably mindful of the little scene which had taken 
place earlier, and each was afraid of appearing to allude 
to it in any way however distantly. It was as if a shadow 
had interposed itself between them. Biddy was wondering 
to what extent John had noticed her evasion of the question 
he had put to her while John was too intent on reconstruct¬ 
ing his future to have much inclination for talking. His 
world was lying shattered at his feet and all he could do 
now was to try to prevent Biddy from finding out that 
she was the one who had wrought the mischief. 

He was thankful when the walk back came to an end and 
he could be alone; and when Biddy tentatively suggested his 



A CERTAIN MAN 


263 


joining her for tea on the rocks that afternoon, he excused 
himself on the plea of having some writing to do, and she 
did not press the point. 

After lunch and an hour for what Miss Bellamy called 
“ silent meditation,” the two ladies sallied forth with 
cushions and work and a tea basket and made their way 
to a broad ledge of rock running parallel to the Porth 
projecting from the side of the Headland. A flight of stone 
steps led down to this from the top and, at the seaward end 
of the ledge, a further flight of steps cut in the solid rock 
enabled any one who wished to do so to reach a sort of plat¬ 
form of granite six feet or so above the level of the sands 
so that, when the tide was up and the sands covered with 
water, the granite platform formed a kind of breakwater on 
which to sit and watch the waves rolling in. 

“ I’ll join you presently,” Miss Bellamy said, when they 
arrived at the top of the upper flight of steps. “ I’m going 
to walk to the end of the Headland. Take my cushion.” 

So Biddy, her arms laden, made her way down the steps 
and along the ledge until she finally arrived at the platform. 
At the top of the lower flight which led down to it she 
paused and considered, for somebody was before her occupy¬ 
ing the spot below and she had a typically British dislike 
of the close proximity of strangers, but at last she deter¬ 
mined to go on and not to be daunted by the solitary 
woman who had dared to invade her territory. 

So she descended the four or five steps with that “ I-see- 
you-but-I’m-going-to-pretend-I-don’t ” air, and settled her¬ 
self and her cushions and produced her work from her bag, 
trusting that her fellow-settler was not of the talkative 
kind. 

She was quickly undeceived on this point for she had 
hardly put her needle into her embroidery before a voice 
assailed her ear. 

“ How nice to see the sun again, isn’t it?” 

Biddy groaned in spirit but as she could not very well 
entirely ignore the question she agreed politely. 



264 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“We’re staying at the thatched cottage,” proceeded the 
voice. “ We arrived only yesterday. My husband has 
been ill, you know.” 

“ My good creature, how on earth should I know,” was 
what Biddy thought, but as she couldn’t very well give 
expression to such a thought, she merely said, “ How trying 
for you,” in disinterested tones. 

“ And such an expense,” pursued the stranger. “ Pneu¬ 
monia, double. A nurse, medicine, and I don’t know what 
else, besides three boys to educate.” 

She spoke rather as if the education of the three boys 
was the direct result of her husband’s double pneumonia. 

“ Helen and Edith have finished school, thank goodness. 
They’re my girls, you know. My name’s Edith, too. My 
first name. My second is Pernel. Such an odd name I 
always think, but my mother chose it. I didn’t. I believe 
it’s a feminine form of Peter. I was born on St. Peter’s 
day, so perhaps that accounts for it, don’t you think?” 

“ I should say it was extremely probable,” assented 
Biddy, with the utmost gravity, thankful that she was alone 
with her companion and that Belle was not there to make 
her laugh. 

She had hardly noticed the woman when she first arrived 
but now she turned and took stock of her. 

She was middle-aged with a rather vacuous expression on 
her round, red, good-natured face but all the same there 
was something attractive about her. She looked like one 
with whom the Fates had not dealt over kindly, as if life 
was a problem she had never been quite able to solve, a 
riddle the answer to which she was ever seeking, but with 
it all there was an air of determination as though she were 
resolved not to be discouraged whatever blow the future 
might have in store for her. 

She was dressed in a shabby blue serge skirt and an 
extraordinarily unbecoming cotton blouse patterned with 
broad stripes of alternate grass-green and drab. On her 
head, tilted rather far back, was a dark blue straw hat 



A CERTAIN MAN 


265 


with a band of ruby velvet meandering round the crown of 
it. A pair of gray cotton gloves, the fingers of which, Biddy 
observed, were mended with black thread, covered her 
hands which were podgy and fat, and black shoes, with a 
patch in the side of the left one, displayed, above their 
tops, stockings of an indeterminate hue which might have 
been either a dirty white or a washed-out khaki. 

There was something rather pathetic about her and Biddy 
suddenly found herself, without any particular reason, feel¬ 
ing very sorry for her. 

She put down the work she had just taken up and pre¬ 
pared to be nice to her. 

“ I hope you aren’t still anxious about your husband,” 
she said. 

The poor woman’s eyes filled with tears. 

“ I shouldn’t be anxious if only he could get quite well 
and strong before he has to start work again. We can only 
afford a fortnight down here and he can’t very well not go 
back to the office once he gets home again. He’s a clerk in 
an insurance office,” she explained. “ The journey here is 
so expensive, isn’t it, but the doctor insisted he should get 
right away. Such a nice man, the doctor, but I’m afraid 
not very happy in his domestic life. Perhaps you’ve heard 
of him? Durrant his name is, Doctor Durrant. Well, you 
know the way doctors talk, as if money was no object? 
‘ Get him right away, Switzerland or the Tyrol,’ he said. 
Of course those places were out of the question so I sug¬ 
gested Cornwall as it was the most right-away place I could 
think of on the spur of the moment and luckily he agreed, 
so here we are. The travelling rather tired him, so I’m keep¬ 
ing him in bed today.” 

“ Tell me about your boys,” Biddy said kindly. 

A look of ecstatic pride came into the stranger’s face. 

“ Such good boys,” she said rapturously. “ They’ve never 
given me a moment’s uneasiness in the whole of their lives 
(I knew she’d say that, thought Biddy), except Fred, of 
course, when he was so ill with scarlet fever six years ago, 



266 


A CERTAIN MAN 


and you couldn’t call that his fault, could you? He’s fif¬ 
teen now, and then there’s Willie who’s thirteen, and Josh. 
He’s my baby. He’s only eleven. They go to a grammar 
school. Rutter, the headmaster’s called. So clever! An 
M. A., you know. Oxford. I’d have loved to have had 
another baby but Jack, my husband, you know, thought 
we’d quite enough with what we had, and I think he was 
right, don’t you? It’s a struggle to educate them as it is. 
I’d give anything to be able to send the boys to Oxford. I’m 
sure Fred is quite clever enough to be an M. A. like Mr. 
Rutter. You see, if my mother-in-law hadn’t married 
against her people’s wishes she’d have come in for a whole 
lot of money when her father died, but then, perhaps, she 
wouldn’t have been my mother-in-law. These things are so 
puzzling, aren’t they? My father-in-law was a Mr. Grain¬ 
dorge, the French for barleycorn, you know, only so much 
more distingue I always think. He was traveller for a firm 
of manufacturers somewhere in the Midlands. I can’t 
quite remember what they manufactured, but that’s neither 
here no there, is it? Anyhow, he fell in love with the head 
of the firm’s daughter. Her father wouldn’t hear of it, of 
course — though why he objected I can’t imagine. It wasn’t 
as if Mr. Graindorge was — well, you know what I mean. 
Some young men are, aren’t they? But he wasn’t like that, 
I’m sure. He was such a good old darling when I knew 
him. Always church twice on Sundays, wet or fine, as 
regular as clockwork, and I can assure you that I never once 
heard him out of temper, though he lived with us five years 
after we married, until he died, in fact. Well, as I was say¬ 
ing, her father wouldn’t hear of it so they took the law into 
their own hands and ran away and got married. So ro¬ 
mantic, I always thought, but her father didn’t see it in 
that light. He never forgave her. She died when Jack 
was born, and Mr. Graindorge was so hurt about it that he 
never even troubled to write and tell him, though it might 
have made all the difference to Jack. As it was, every 
penny went to the son and her name wasn’t even mentioned. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


267 


Of course he didn’t even know of Jack’s existence. It does 
seem rather hard, doesn’t it? However, I daresay it’s all 
for the best, though it’s difficult to see why, but then Provi¬ 
dence is like that, isn’t it? So independent.” She scram¬ 
bled to her feet as she finished this rigmarole and held out 
a plump hand. 

“ Well, good-bye,” she said effusively. “ I must get back 
to Jack now. I’ve enjoyed our chat so much. If ever you’re 
Putney way do come and see me. 13 Jerram Mansions is 
the address. I hope you won’t be frightened away by the 
number. Some people think it unlucky, don’t they, but I 
can’t say I ever found it so. Don’t forget the name. 
Graindorge, Mrs. John Graindorge. My father-in-law’s 
name was James but as he’s dead that doesn’t matter, does 
it? What I mean to say is, it needn’t muddle you.” 

She shook Biddy warmly by the hand as if she’d known 
her for years and stumped away up the rock steps, at the 
top of which she turned and waved a gray cotton glove. 

“ Mrs. John Graindorge, 13 Jerram Mansions, Putney. 
The French for barleycorn, you know. Huguenot, I should 
think, shouldn’t you?” And with that she was gone, leav¬ 
ing Biddy breathless and exhausted. 



CHAPTER XVIII 


John’s holidays drew to a close, in some ways too rapidly, 
in others too slowly, for his liking. 

Since that afternoon when he had put that question to 
Biddy which she had refused to answer, that afternoon on 
which he had intuitively guessed what she was holding back 
from him, he had found it difficult to regulate his conduct 
in a manner that, without giving away the fact of his dis¬ 
covery, should yet enable him to not exactly avoid her, but 
to spend less time in her and Roger’s company. Now that 
he knew that he must hope for nothing, beyond the warm 
friendship which she had never denied him and which, since 
they had come together again, had been his in full measure, 
it was purgatory to him to be in her presence, especially 
when, as was often the case, Roger was there also. He 
found himself watching them avidly, noting each word, each 
look that passed between them, longing for Biddy’s sake, 
dreading for his own, to see some reflection in Roger’s 
speech or actions of the smouldering fire of her newly 
kindled emotions which, now that John knew they existed, 
every now and then, or so it seemed to him, threw out a 
sudden spurt of flame that was extinguished almost as soon 
as it was alight. 

A sort of restraint sprang up between the three of them 
when he was there and once or twice he caught Biddy’s eyes 
fixed on him with that mute appeal in them which he had 
observed after that memorable occasion when he had staked 
all and lost. 

It was the night before he was returning to town. All 
day it had been warm and sultry and after dinner he and 
Roger, who had, with Mr. Peal’s consent, kept that evening 
free that they might spend it together, went down to the 
bay on the further side of the Headland from the Porth. 

The tide was coming in, but as yet it was but half way 
268 


A CERTAIN MAN 


269 


up the bay, and over the great arm of land stretching out 
into the sea on their left hand, the moon, already past its 
first quarter, was shining down slantways on to the waves, 
turning their crests of white foam to silver. The wind, 
blowing from the north, was inclined to be chilly without 
the sun to counteract its bite, and they found shelter from it 
under the concrete wall which supported the little wooden 
platform where the steps which led down from the top of the 
cliff made a hairpin bend to reach the shore, following the 
contour of the cliff itself. This platform, a structure of 
some four feet square, had a wooden rail opposite the 
ascending stairs and, below this rail, the concrete wall 
went perpendicularly down to the beach, a drop of some 
fifteen feet so that anybody on the platform could not, 
unless they leaned over the rail, see anybody sitting imme¬ 
diately underneath. 

Roger was squatting with his knees drawn up and his 
hands clasped round them with John beside him lying full 
length on his back, supporting his head with interlocked 
fingers. 

“ It is rot your having to go tomorrow,” Roger said, 
looking down at the silent figure at his side. 

John gave a little sigh. 

“ Dreams don’t last forever,” he said. “ Sooner or later 
one has to wake up.” 

“ Yes, but it’s a beastly process,” Roger said. “ In 
another fortnight Biddy’ll have gone too and then — ” He 
stopped short and didn’t finish the sentence. 

“Then what?” asked John. 

Roger gave a little nervous laugh. 

“ Why then I’ll be going too in another month,” he said. 

It wasn’t quite how he had meant to end the sentence. 
He had been going to say, “ I don’t know how I’m going to 
stick it when she’s not here,” but on second thoughts had 
evaded the climax. 

“ Yes, by the way,” John said. “ We’ve got to be on the 
lookout for another job, haven’t we?” 



270 


A CERTAIN MAN 


Roger idly picked up a stone and let it drop again. 

“1 suppose so,” he said slowly and without enthusiasm. 
“ I suppose I shall have to take any old thing that comes 
along. Beggars can’t be choosers, unfortunately.” In sud¬ 
den contrition he touched John’s arm letting his fingers rest 
there for a moment so that the touch became a caress. 
“ That was a putrid thing to say, old man, after all I owe 
you. I wasn’t thinking what I was doing. But for you 
I should never have had this glorious time. Oh, I’ve lived 
this last two months. I didn’t know what life was before.” 

“ Two months. But you’ve been here four.” 

“ Oh, well, the first two months I was only coming to 
life. Resuscitation’s a lengthy job, you know.” Roger 
shifted uneasily and looked down at John, sprawling at his 
side, in contemplative fashion. 

“I — I suppose old what’s-his-name left Biddy a pot of 
money, didn’t he?” he asked after a moment’s pause. 

John, who had had his eyes closed, opened them suddenly 
and turned his head to get a better view of Roger. It was 
bright enough in the moonlight to distinguish every line 
of his face. 

“Somewhere in the region of five thousand a year, I 
believe,” John answered. “ Why d’you want to know?” 

“ It’s a frightful lot, isn’t it?” 

“ That’s a matter of comparison. I suppose to a Roths¬ 
child it would be a mere fleabite.” 

“ And to a poor devil like myself an embarras de 
richesses.” 

At this point John sat up and began to take notice. 
There was so much concentrated bitterness in Roger’s voice 
that it was impossible to miss it. 

“ What d’you mean?” he enquired sharply. 

“ Oh, nothing in particular,” replied Roger, growing 
restive under John’s scrutiny. “ Got a match on you?” 

John produced a match from his pocket and handed it to 
Roger who lit a cigarette and then gave the box back. 

It was so obviously a ruse to change the current of the 



A CERTAIN MAN 


271 


conversation that a growing conviction sprang up in John’s 
mind that there was something behind it all. He knew it 
was a ruse because earlier on he had seen Roger with a 
nearly full box of vestas and it was quite out of the ques¬ 
tion that he could have used them all. He had an impres¬ 
sion that Roger wanted to confide in him about something 
and was shying off, and he determined to keep him to the 
subject, whether he would or no. It might be that the 
moment he longed for (and dreaded!) was at hand and at 
the bare idea of such a thing he felt his heart pounding in 
his breast. 

“ Why d’you say Biddy’s income would be an ' embarras 
de richesses ’ to a poor devil like yourself,” he asked. 

“ I didn’t say Biddy’s income particularly,” Roger 
answered captiously. “ I said five thousand a year.” 

“ D’you mean to say you’d object to five thousand a 
year?” John demanded to know. 

“ It ’ud all depend,” answered Roger with reservation. 

“ Depend on what?” 

“ Well on — how it came to one.” 

“ There are four ways in which a man can accumulate a 
fortune. Inheritance, success in business, lucky speculation 

— and matrimony,” said John deliberately, ticking off the 
items one by one on his fingers. “ Which of those would 
you object to?” 

“ Matrimony,” Roger said boldly. 

“ But supposing you were in love with a woman who had 

— well, let’s keep to the five thousand a year, as that’s the 
figure we started the discussion with. D’you mean honestly 
to tell me that, just because she had that money, you’d 
chuck away your happiness and, possibly, hers?” 

“ It wouldn’t be my happiness,” Roger said. “ Look 
here, John. You’ve run me often enough for being what 
you’re pleased to call obstinate. Well I am obstinate. I 
freely admit I’m also proud, and, since our discussion seems 
to be assuming a more or less concrete form with me as 
the dreadful example, let’s imagine, for the sake of argu- 



272 


A CERTAIN MAN 


ment, that I, an obstinate devil, I, as I am at the present, 
a pauper, who, until lately, was a tramp and outcast, am 
in love with — with a rich woman, and supposing, also for 
the sake of argument, that I was to marry her. Can you 
see me, who’ve not got two pennies to rub against one 
another, much less enough money to be even a parlour- 
boarder in my wife’s house, can you see me dependent upon 
her for everything — the clothes I wear, the food I put into 
my mouth, the roof that covers me? Can you see me 
bastardising my pride, laying my honour in the dust? Why, 
man, I tell you that if I deliberately placed myself in a 
position like that, the very stones would cry out. Every 
time I put my hand in my pocket and took out a coin to 
pay for something, I should be reminding myself, ‘ You 
fraud! That’s not your money you’re using. You’re living 
on the charity of your predecessor. It’s the money he left 
to his widow that clothes and feeds and shelters you. You’re 
taking advantage of the bounty of a man who’s dead and 
can’t prevent it.’ How long do you think I should be happy 
under those circumstances?” 

He stopped and threw out his arms with a gesture of 
despair, and John pricked up his ears. 

In his vehemence Roger had made three slips which 
John was quick to fasten upon. He talked about his 
“ predecessor,” he had spoken of the hypothetical rich 
woman as a widow, when no word had passed which might 
have suggested that she was not a spinster, and he had 
used the expression “ the bounty of a man who’s dead,” all 
of which went to prove that, without realising his blunder, 
he had lapsed from the general to the particular, from the 
impersonal to the personal, and was drawing upon what his 
own feelings would be in some specific case to support his 
theories. 

There was only one person who fitted into the case which 
he so obviously had in his own mind and -to whom the 
description applied, and that was Biddy. John had no 
doubt whatever on that score. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


273 


Strangely enough, even now he felt no resentment against 
Roger. He knew that, according to all traditions, his para¬ 
mount desire ought to be to seize his unconscious rival by 
the throat and strangle the life out of him, but he felt no 
such desire. In every book he had read in which love for a 
woman interposed itself as a barrier between two friends, 
the greater their original affection for one another, the 
greater their subsequent hatred, but there was nothing of 
that sort here. There was an impersonal element about the 
whole affair which seemed to put him right outside it. He 
felt like a spectator at a play who watches the unrolling of 
the plot with absorbed interest but who knows that, what¬ 
ever the outcome of it, it will not affect him directly one 
jot or one tittle. 

His own cause was hopeless — he had no illusions about 
that — so the only thing that mattered now was Biddy’s 
happiness, and if it was in his power to advance that hap¬ 
piness by any means, he would do so at whatever cost to 
himself. 

It was the same yielding up of self which had come to 
him that night when he had knelt at the feet of the ivory 
Christ in the bedroom in Eddis Street and cried out “ Lord, 
what wouldst Thou have me to do that night when he had 
thought of Biddy, Roger and himself as three tiny cogs in 
the world’s wheel, each in their predestined place. His place 
had been already allotted to him and it was beyond his con¬ 
trol to alter it now. 

“ And that’s only one side of the picture,” Roger was 
going on in hopeless tones. “ There’s the other side as 
well. There are always a number of kind people in a case 
like this — like we’ve been imagining — to set the ball of 
scandal rolling. The whisper would go round that I had 
married, not for love, but for money. Nobody would 
believe otherwise and the whisper would become an articu¬ 
late sound, growing louder and louder until it developed into 
a shout, and, in time, it would reach her ears. Then the 
insidious poison would begin to work. The seed of doubt 



274 


A CERTAIN MAN 


would throw out its little shoots which would spread and 
spread like some noxious weed, until they choked everything 
else. Gradually love and trust and the very power of rea¬ 
soning would be killed off and happiness would be at an 
end.” 

“ All the same, Roger, I think you’re wrong,” John said 
quietly. “ I think the woman ought to be given the chance. 
If she was sure of her man she’d be proof against whatever 
malicious people might choose to say. She’d be willing to 
take the risk.” 

“ Then I wouldn’t be willing to take it for her,” Roger 
said vehemently. “ There’s the double risk, remember. 
I couldn’t be happy battening on a dead man’s money, 
and if I were unhappy she’d be unhappy too, and her 
unhappiness would be in proportion to her love for me. 
If — if I cared for a woman situated like that, I’d tear 
my tongue out by the roots sooner than run the risk of 
spoiling her life by putting her in such a position.” 

“ Even if the woman happened to be Biddy?” John asked 
point blank. 

Roger looked at him for a moment in startled silence, 
then suddenly dropped his face into his hands with a little 
stifled groan. “ God,” John hoard him mutter below his 
breath, and then there was absolute stillness, broken only 
by the noise of the waves crashing on the shore. 

For a full minute, which seemed like an eternity, he sat 
there with his face buried while John watched and waited, 
but at last he lifted his head and the man at his side could 
see his features, in the bright light of the moon, set in 
grim, tense lines. 

“How did you guess?” All the youthful ring had gone 
out of Roger’s voice and it sounded cold and lifeless. 

“ Dear old man, you’ve been telling me for the last five 
minutes,” John said, a great gush of sympathy welling up in 
his heart for this boy whom, in spite of everything, he loved. 

He hesitated for a second, trying to find the right words 
for what he wanted to say. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


275 


“ You aren’t going to be an obstinate ass and spoil your 
life — and Biddy’s — for a bit of damned quixotism?” he 
said at length. “ Happiness isn’t so cheap that you can 
afford to throw it away for the sake of a misguided prin¬ 
ciple. Listen to reason.” 

He laid his hand on Roger’s knee as he spoke, but he 
impatiently jerked his leg away. 

“ I’d spoil Biddy’s life if I married her, as things are,” 
Roger said doggedly, and now his voice rang out loud and 
distinct. “ Look here, John, you’ve guessed that I love 
Biddy. Well, I do. I’m not ashamed to own it. I love her 
with every ounce of strength in my soul and body. I love 
every separate hair on her head just because it’s a part of 
her. Dear God! how I love her. Every moment of my 
life before I knew her was a moment wasted. Every 
moment of my life after — after she’s gone out of it, will be 
bitter-sweet with the memory of her. My love for her is so 
— tremendous, that I could sweep her away in the torrent 
of it if I opened the floodgates of my heart, but I’m not 
going to do anything of the kind. It’s because my love for 
her is what it is, that I’ve been able to keep silence and 
carry on as though it didn’t exist and it’s because of that I 
shall go on keeping silence. It’s better, a thousand times 
better,, to break my own heart than run the risk of break¬ 
ing hers.” 

He stopped, exhausted by the violence of his emotion, and 
once more hid his face in his hands. 

“ So Biddy’s to have no voice in the matter,” John said 
dryly. “ It’s Pride versus Love — and Pride wins.” 

Roger sprang to his feet. 

“ You can say what you like,” he cried passionately. 
“ Nothing you can say will alter my determination though. 
It’s easy enough to sneer when you aren’t the one to go 
through with it. I know what I’m about, Perhaps you 
think because you beat down my pride once before that you 
can do it again, that you’ve the right to dictate, to regulate 
my life down to its very essence, because you picked me 



276 


A CERTAIN MAN 


out of the gutter and wiped me down and set me on my feet 
again. Listen to me, then. 

“I swear before Almighty God that, while Biddy has one 
single penny of that money that came to her from her 
husband, I’ll never marry her even if she’d have me. Does 
that prove to you that I’m resolved?” 

John had risen to his feet while Roger was speaking, and 
the two men stood there face to face in the moonlight, 
Roger with one hand raised above his head, the forefinger 
pointing upwards as though invoking the God before whom 
he made his declaration, John with both his clenched down 
by his sides in the supreme effort to control his feelings and 
check the flow of angry words which sprang to his lips 
because he knew that, if he once let himself go, he would 
say things that afterwards, when it was too late to retract, 
he would bitterly repent. He was furiously angry with 
Roger but he had sufficient wits left him to realise that the 
boy was beside himself and hardly knew what he was 
saying. 

So engrossed were the two in the stress of their several 
emotions that neither of them noticed, as they could have 
done by glancing up, the figure of a woman standing on the 
little wooden platform just above their heads to whom 
every word of their conversation was distinctly audible, even 
through the roar of the sea. 

Biddy had felt restless and uneasy that evening, and, 
after trying to distract herself with one thing after another, 
music, Patience and sewing, had discarded them in turn 
and wandered aimlessly about the room unable to settle to 
anything. 

“ Go out for a bit,” suggested Miss Bellamy, to whom 
she confided her feelings, and whose nerves, to tell the 
truth, Biddy was rather getting on. 

Biddy instantly brightened up at the proposal. 

“ I think I will,” she said. “ Will you come with me?” 

“ I most certainly will not,” said Miss Bellamy decidedly, 
“ I’ve enough of the cat in me to love my own fireside. Even 



A CERTAIN MAN 


277 


when there isn’t a fire,” she added a little ruefully, glancing 
at the empty hearth. 

“ I want to do something really energetic,” Biddy 
observed. “ What would you advise?” ' 

“ Go down the steps to Morant Bay and then climb up 
them again,” Miss Bellamy recommended her. “ That 
ought to take the stuffing out of any woman. You’ll come 
back as gentle as a sucking dove. 

“ That’s a good idea, Belle. I think I’ll carry it out.” 

Biddy went upstairs and changed her shoes and slipped 
a gray cloak over her dinner dress. 

“ I’m off,” she announced, putting her head in at the 
door of the drawing room when she came down again. 

“ Thank goodness for that,” said Miss Bellamy gratefully. 
“ Another five minutes doing the hosts of Midian stunt 
round the room and I’d have screamed out loud, or else have 
carried out the programme laid down in the hymn and have 
up and smited you.” 

“ Sweet thing. I can always rely on you for sympathy,” 
retorted Biddy. 

She went out and when she got out on to the road turned 
down to the right. The road dipped down to the level of 
the sea, then rose again steeply until it reached the top of 
the cliffs from which a broad stretch of grassy turf separated 
it. Here it was that the steps led down to the bay, a hun¬ 
dred and fifty feet below, and Biddy, crossing the grass, 
commenced the descent. 

It was not until she reached the platform nearly at the 
bottom, where the steps turned sharply to the right, that 
she was aware of voices immediately underneath her, and 
recognised them for those of John and Roger. So they had 
slunk off here without telling her they were going or invit¬ 
ing her to accompany them, had they? All right! They 
must be punished for that. 

She pulled a great lump of some soft growing stuff out 
of the face of the cliff and, advancing cautiously, leaned over 
the rail to locate them in order to drop it on their heads. 



278 


A CERTAIN MAN 


She had it poised in her hands ready to let it go when a 
sentence floated up to her ears and caused her to remain 
motionless in the position in which she happened to be. 

It was Roger who was speaking. 

“ Look here, John. You’ve guessed that I love Biddy. 
Well, I do. I’m not ashamed to own it. I love her with 
every ounce of strength in my soul and body —” 

She stood there motionless, the bunch of soft green 
clasped against her breast, her lips parted in a little smile 
of almost incredulous happiness, listening to the words 
pouring out of his mouth. She wasn’t conscious of the 
fact that she was deliberately eavesdropping, and if she 
had been she wouldn’t have cared. Some of the words 
were drowned in the roar of the breakers, but those she 
did hear told her all she wanted to know. 

“ Pride versus Love — and Pride wins,” she heard John 
say. What did he mean by that? Then Roger’s voice, 
angry and loud, saying something about John picking him 
out of the gutter and setting him on his feet again, and 
then, finally, that culminating sentence, every word of which 
came to her clear and resonant as a bell: “ I swear before 
Almighty God that, while Biddy has one single penny of 
that money that came to her from her husband, I’ll never 
marry her, even if she’d have me. Does that prove that I’m 
resolved?” 

Then Biddy did a strange thing for, dropping the armful 
of green stuff at her feet, she kissed both hands in Roger’s 
direction. 

“ Dear silly,” she whispered, softly. “ Love wins every 
time.” 

Then, fearful lest one of the two below might look up 
and catch sight of her, she turned and, picking up her skirts, 
ran quickly up the steps and vanished. 



CHAPTER XIX 


The following morning John went back to town. 

There was the same trio to see him off that had been at 
the station to welcome him on his arrival, and, in addition, 
his mother and Miss Bellamy. 

Each of the five assembled on the platform was in a 
slightly abnormal mood. Biddy, though she would not have 
admitted it for worlds, even to herself, was the tiniest bit 
relieved to see John go. His aunt was numb with the cer¬ 
tainty that, before another twelve months came round, her 
nephew would have succumbed to some fell disease con¬ 
tracted in a London slum; Roger, deeply contrite for the 
somewhat ungracious attitude he had displayed the evening 
previous, was alternately effacing himself and being over- 
officious in seeing after the luggage, buying papers for the 
journey, etc.; Mrs. Ffoulkes, who had newly risen from a bed 
of symptomatic sickness, whither she had betaken herself 
with a string with twenty knots in it and a volume on auto¬ 
suggestion, was frankly more interested in the extraordinary 
force of will power she had brought to bear to leave her 
couch and be up at the station at the unearthly hour of 
eleven thirty than in John’s departure; while Miss Bellamy 
was, as frankly, in a condition of extreme and undisguised 
irritability, due to the fact that a telegram had arrived 
from Carrie Pan ter, just as they were setting out for the 
station, announcing that the lady and her brother were 
hoping to reach Hine, where they had taken rooms at the 
George Hotel for a fortnight, that evening. 

“ There you are, you see,” she said to John, when she 
managed, with a little manoeuvring, to get him apart from 
the others and tell him of the dreadful news. “ Didn’t I 
warn you what would happen? And here you are going 
back to your tiresome old East-Enders just at the very 

279 


280 


A CERTAIN MAN 


moment you’re really wanted. What the blazes is the good 
of a landmark that scours the country and doesn’t stop in 
one place?” 

John gave a rueful laugh. 

“ We over estimated the value of a landmark, I’m afraid,” 
he said. “You see people get so accustomed to seeing them 
always there that they end by not seeing them at all. I 
don’t think you need worry, though. I’ve got a kind of 
idea that our mutual friend, Mr. Reggie Franklin, has not 
chosen an altogether opportune moment in which to press 
his suit, if that’s what you’re afraid of.” 

At this point Mrs. Ffoulkes bore down upon them. She 
hadn’t got out of bed three hours before her usual time 
to have another woman monopolising her son and usurping 
the position of leading lady, least of all Miss Bellamy whom 
she had never really quite liked since that memorable day 
when she had called upon her with reference to Roger’s 
conduct in presuming to go for walks with Biddy. 

“ Excuse me,” she said with distant politeness, rather 
in the tones she would have employed had Miss Bellamy 
been a complete stranger whom she was stretching across 
to reach the salt-cellar. 

Miss Bellamy, under the circumstances, had no choice 
left her but to give way before her superior claims, but 
she wasn’t going to pretend she was pleased. 

“ I’ll write to you and let you know what happens,” she 
said, moving away. 

“ What happens about what?” enquired Mrs. Ffoulkes, 
scenting a mystery, as Miss Bellamy intended she should 
do. Miss Bellamy was out of earshot by this time, or she 
would never have demeaned herself to ask the question. 

“ Oh, nothing much,” John replied. “ How’s the neu¬ 
ralgia?” 

Mrs. Ffoulkes, thus suddenly recalled to a remembrance 
of the particular ailment she was cultivating at the moment, 
winced perceptibly. 

“ We won’t waste time discussing that, dear,” she 



A CERTAIN MAN 


281 


observed bravely. “ I don’t want to throw any gloom over 
our last few minutes together.” She shook her head fore¬ 
bodingly. “ Doctor Cator dosen’t say much about it, but 
I can see he’s puzzled,” she added. 

“ Don’t you think it was almost a pity you left Dr. Crowe, 
Mother?” John said. 

“ Dr. Crowe wasn’t sympathetic,” Mrs. Ffoulkes ex¬ 
plained. “ A nice enough man in his way, I daresay, but 
he didn’t understand me. He confessed himself he could 
find absolutely nothing wrong with me, in spite of my telling 
him what was the matter, so of course, after that, I lost 
confidence in him.” 

“ Of course,” John said automatically. “ I’d better be 
getting back to my seat now.” 

“ I’m not going to wait to see you off,” Biddy declared 
when he got back to the knot round the carriage door. 
“ It’s frightfully unlucky. I’ll see you when I come home, 
won’t I, John?” 

“ Rather,” John said, with what cheerfulness he could 
muster. “ When do you leave here?” 

“ The fourteenth,” she told him. “ This day fortnight, 
so I’ll expect you to lunch on the nineteenth.” 

“ So kind to my boy always, dear Biddy,” murmured Mrs. 
Ffoulkes with an effusion she would not have thought of 
demonstrating if Biddy had been, say, a poor governess 
instead of what she was. “ So kind to everybody,” she went 
on. “ Foolishly kind, in some cases, I sadly fear. I know 
your warm heart. You mustn’t let it be imposed upon, 
you know.” 

“ I’m not going to let it be, I promise you, Mrs. 
Ffoulkes,” asserted Biddy confidently. 

“ That’s right, dear. Come in and have a chat one 
afternoon. I shall be so lonely, now dear John has gone. 
We’ll make all sorts of plans for him. A nice little vicarage 
in the country, not too far from Porth Ros, and a nice 
little wife to share it with him, eh?” she said archly. 

It was evident John had not consulted his “ best friend ” 



282 


A CERTAIN MAN 


on the subject of the nice little vicarage next door to the 
glue factory, or if he had, that she was determined to 
ignore it. 

Mrs. Ffoulkes’ intention with regard to her son’s future 
was so obvious and so utterly lacking in finesse or stratagem 
that it was not difficult to guess at her meaning and both 
the victims blushed a fiery red. 

“ That’ll be great fun,” Biddy said, bringing out the first 
words that came into her head in order to relieve the 
tension. “ Well, good-bye, John. See you soon.” 

“ Good-bye, old man.” Roger stood on the step of the 
carriage and put his shoulders through the window, effect¬ 
ually blocking it up. 

“ Sorry about last night. Afraid I lost my head a bit. 
I didn’t mean what I said about you and me. I meant all 
the rest though,” he said in low tones which only John 
could hear, then, before the latter could make any reply, 
he was off down the platform with Biddy and Miss Bellamy, 
leaving Mrs. Ffoulkes and Miss Gunning to bid farewell 
in their turn. 

Miss Gunning was grateful to Biddy for not waiting to 
see the train off. She didn’t know whether it was an excuse 
to give her and her sister the last few minutes alone with 
John or whether she really did object to watching the de¬ 
parture of any one but, whatever the real reason, Miss 
Gunning was none the less glad not to have to say good-bye 
to him under the eyes of these comparative strangers. It 
was not that she had much opportunity of any last words 
with John for Mrs. Ffoulkes stood squarely up against the 
door of the railway carriage and she herself was forced to be 
content with gazing at her nephew through the glass of the 
side window but even that was, as it were, a private view 
from which the general public was excluded and, since 
as usual she had entirely made up her mind that it was the 
last time she would ever see him again in this world, it was 
something to be able to fix in her mind each detail of the 
beloved features. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


283 


John’s mother and aunt always saw him off at the end 
of his holiday as though he were departing for the interior 
of some distant and savage unknown country where the 
chances of his ever coming through alive were small. 

Mrs. Ffoulkes, whose familiarity with London was con¬ 
fined to an occasional stay of a couple of nights at one of 
those hotels near the British Museum where the lone, lorn 
female is specially catered for, had a rooted idea which noth¬ 
ing would eradicate that the East End of the metropolis was 
composed entirely of thieves’ kitchens and Chinese opium 
dens interspersed with frequent public houses. 

With hazy recollections of Jack the Ripper, she populated 
the district with a race far more cunning and blood-thirsty 
than the cunningest and most blood-thirsty red Indian that 
ever stalked through the pages of Fennimore Cooper, and 
she derived a melancholy satisfaction from the lurid pic¬ 
tures painted by her imagination. If all else failed she could 
always make her anxiety an excuse for the sympathy of her 
friends and hold it to account for her wretched health. 

Miss Gunning, on the other hand, as has been seen, 
brooded over the risk John ran of contracting some virulent 
disease in the course of his ministrations and lay awake at 
nights whenever the weather was either unduly hot or cold, 
kept from sleep by the haunting certainty that her nephew 
had fallen a victim to heat apoplexy or pneumonia accord¬ 
ing to whichever extremity the thermometer displayed. Her 
anxiety endured for the whole period of John’s absence 
whereas Mrs. Ffoulkes, at the end of a fortnight, had for¬ 
gotten that such things as thieves’ kitchens and opium 
dens existed and never allowed the thought of them to 
disturb her night’s repose. She owed it to her health, she 
said, to try to snatch an hour or two of sleep. 

Mrs. Panter’s telegram had come in the nature of a bomb¬ 
shell to Miss Bellamy who had believed that lady safe 
in Scotland. Even Biddy had been somewhat taken aback 
by it and had exhibited no particular transports of delight 



284 


A CERTAIN MAN 


at the prospect of Carrie’s impending arrival. Not even 
the fact that Mr. Franklin was to accompany his sister 
produced any expressions of satisfaction from the recipient 
of the wire and that, at any rate, was a source of gratifi¬ 
cation to Miss Bellamy, though she was considerably put 
out when Biddy, on leaving the station, announced her 
intention of calling at the George Hotel to make sure about 
the rooms being comfortable, a quite unnecessary proceed¬ 
ing, Miss Bellamy asserted, for the George was one of the 
best and most expensive hotels in Hine and would not 
be likely to have rooms that were not comfortable. 

She was over ruled however and followed Biddy with a 
bad grace and, when the latter insisted on going upstairs 
and inspecting the apartments reserved as per wire, tartly 
refused to accompany her, but, instead, sat down in 
the hall, very erect in an upright chair, stubbornly deter¬ 
mined not to participate in any of the comforts which 
Carrie Panter was presently to enjoy. 

Roger had left them to go back to his work so Miss 
Bellamy was alone with her thoughts and, having nobody 
with whom she could share them, sat and brooded over the 
prospects of the immediate future until she was thoroughly 
depressed. 

That some definite object lay behind this visit to Hine 
of Mrs. Panter and her brother (and more particularly of 
the latter), Miss Bellamy was positive. Mr. Reggie Frank¬ 
lin was not the kind of man to give up any of the pleasant 
shooting parties which he was wont to frequent at this 
period of the year in order to spend a fortnight at the sea¬ 
side with his sister, unless he hoped to gain something by 
so doing. 

Biddy kept up a fairly regular correspondence with her 
friend and, no doubt, had mentioned the fact that John was 
spending his holiday at Porth Ros. It looked to Miss 
Bellamy rather as if Mrs. Panter had got the wind up 
with regard to him and was nervous lest her brother might 
lose ground. Mr. Franklin was, as she had recognised in 



A CERTAIN MAN 


285 


London, entirely under the thumb of his astute sister and 
quite content to leave her to stage-manage his affairs and 
if she decided that a visit to Hine was necessary would fall 
in with her views without demur. 

What did John mean by that remark of his that Mr. 
Reggie Franklin had not chosen an opportune moment in 
which to press his suit? Could it be that there was any¬ 
thing between John and Biddy? Mrs. Ffoulkes had 
broadly hinted at such a consummation in that ridiculous 
speech of hers at the station about a “ nice little vicarage 
in the country not too far from Porth Ros and a nice little 
wife to share it with him.” And certainly both John and 
Biddy had looked foolish enough to lead anybody to sup¬ 
pose that there was something in it, but somehow Miss 
Bellamy didn’t think there was. Still, Mrs. Panter might, 
nevertheless, be anxious on that score and feel the necessity 
of not only being on the spot herself to see, with her own 
eyes, exactly what was happening, but also of her brother 
being there to cut in if the opportunity arose. That must 
be it, of course. There wasn’t anybody else to be a cause 
of uneasiness. Suddenly Miss Bellamy stiffened herself. 
Nobody else! Of course there was somebody else. What 
about Roger? A hundred incidents, hitherto relegated to 
the lumber room of her brain as not worth a second thought, 
flashed into her mind and assumed a new significance. She 
recollected with misgiving her perturbation after that mo¬ 
mentous interview with Mrs. Ffoulkes, and how she had 
dismissed her fears with the assurance that, in the new order 
of things, Platonic friendship was so common as hardly to 
call for comment. Was it Roger? Was John in the secret? 
Had Biddy, in all innocence, raised any suspicions in Mrs. 
Panter’s mind? And supposing that it were so? How did 
Biddy stand then? 

Miss Bellamy liked Roger well enough, but the same 
thought occurred to her that had occurred to Miss Gunning. 
Biddy was a rich woman, Roger a poor man. What a temp¬ 
tation to one in his peculiar position to seize such an oppor- 



286 


A CERTAIN MAN 


tunity. Biddy, in spite of her twenty-nine years and the 
experience of marriage, was such a child still in many ways, 
with a childlike trust in her fellow creatures which sur¬ 
vived every ordeal to which it was subjected and even 
found excuses for any lapse from the strict path of honour 
when one was forced upon her notice. 

Miss Bellamy felt that perhaps after all she had been 
wrong and Mrs. Ffoulkes right in their respective attitudes 
towards the potentialities of Platonic friendships. 

She had reached a point in her surmisings when they 
had already assumed the proportions of accomplished facts 
but here, luckily, her sound commonsense reasserted itself. 
The foe was at the gate in the persons of Carrie Panter and 
her brother. For the present she would concentrate on them 
and let the rest go hang. 

Mrs. Panter, when she had met John and Roger at 
Biddy’s house four months previously and had learned that 
they were all to foregather in Cornwall, had felt a momen¬ 
tary uneasiness but the slight concern she had experienced 
had quickly died away; indeed she had almost, if not quite, 
forgotten all about it when it was revived by a letter which 
she received from Biddy and in which the names of John 
and Roger occurred with disquieting frequency. 

She was not one to let the grass grow under her feet. 
She had marked Biddy down as her brother’s and she 
wasn’t going to run any risks of letting her slip for want of 
a little exertion; so, although she was in Scotland enjoying 
herself thoroughly according to her wont, she tore herself 
away, telegraphed to her brother to meet her in town, and, 
when he obeyed her summons, whisked him off to Cornwall 
post haste. 

Reggie Franklin was one of those indolent people who 
are content to let other people do all the work for them 
and it was his sister who had stage-managed his courtship 
of Biddy (if it could be dignified by such a name), from 
the beginning. He didn’t object to the courtship but he 



A CERTAIN MAN 


287 


would never have exerted himself to pursue Biddy to Corn¬ 
wall if Mrs. Panter had not insisted. Her share in the 
matter was not altogether a disinterested one. She was 
rather tired of being called upon to get her brother out of 
tight corners and, though her husband gave her an adequate 
allowance for her needs, it did not run to Reggie’s needs as 
well; and when it came to her having to foot the bill for a 
diamond pendant supplied to a lady not unknown to fame 
in a certain substratum of society she cast round to find 
somebody better able to stand the strain of Reggie’s finan¬ 
cial entanglements than herself, and her choice fell upon 
Biddy. It was quite as much of importance to her, there¬ 
fore, as to her brother that there should be no slip between 
the cup and the lip, and the adage that absence makes the 
heart grow fonder having apparently proved its falsity, and 
mistrusting the propinquity of the two unplaced young 
men whom she had met at Biddy’s house in London, she 
determined that Reggie’s presence was necessary as an anti¬ 
dote. Besides which, she felt more competent to deal with 
the situation on the spot. 

It was something of a relief to her to find that one of 
them had gone as it enabled her to keep a closer watch on 
the remaining one and, being a strategist, she came to the 
conclusion that the best way to do it was to seek his com¬ 
pany upon every possible occasion, this procedure serving a 
double purpose for it cleared the field for her brother to 
make hay in while the sun shone while, at the same time, 
it prevented Roger being too often alone with Biddy. 
These, it must be explained, were only cautionary measures, 
for she saw nothing in the behaviour of either Biddy or 
Roger to rouse her suspicions in the slightest degree. Still, 
one never knew, and it did no harm to be on the safe side. 

Knowing nothing of the real state of affairs, for each was 
acting a part to deceive the other, she was soon lulled into a 
false security and it was therefore a rude shock to her when 
Reggie came to her room one night after they had been at 
Hine a week, with the unwelcome intelligence that he had 



288 


A CERTAIN MAN 


proposed to Biddy and that she had definitely and unmis¬ 
takably refused him and, moreover, had distinctly given him 
to understand that there was no hope for him in the future 
and that her answer must be regarded as absolutely final. 
Mrs. Panter was inclined to be nasty about it. 

“ You blundering fool,” she said angrily, restraining an 
intense desire to slap him. “ Why couldn’t you wait? I 
never meant you to do it yet. I suppose you barged in at 
some inappropriate moment. You’ve spoilt everything now 
with your usual clumsiness. Why the devil couldn’t you 
wait till I gave you the tip?” 

“ Oh, yes, say it’s my fault,” grumbled the rejected suitor 
gloomily. “ I suppose next you’ll be telling me I ought to 
have let you do the asking. You’re always so jolly cocksure 
of yourself. You pretend you’re such a pal of Biddy 
Rycroft’s and talk by the yard about how she confides in 
you, and yet you didn’t even know there was another 
man.” 

Mrs. Panter who, while her brother was delivering him¬ 
self of the foregoing speech, had returned to her occupation 
of brushing her hair, an occupation which Reggie’s entrance 
had momentarily interrupted, put the brush down on the 
dressing table and swung round to face him. 

“ Another man! What other man?” she demanded 
incredulously. 

“ How the devil should I know?” asked her brother sav¬ 
agely. “ D’you suppose she’d tell me a thing like that?” 

“ Did she tell you there was another man?” demanded 
Mrs. Panter peremptorily. 

“ Practically. I asked her point blank and she got her 
claws out straight away. Wanted to know what the 
hell it had got to do with me. Slung a lot of back chat 
about minding my own business. Presumed she wasn’t 
answerable to me for her own private affairs, and so on and 
so forth. Another man? Of course there’s another man. 
She gave herself away over and over again. I’ll tell you 
what, Carrie, I’m darned well out of it. For all her demure 



A CERTAIN MAN 


289 


looks Biddy’s got the devil’s own temper when she gets 
going.” 

“ You don’t mean to say you’re going to be warned off 
like that and just cave in without a struggle? You and 
your damned tactlessness. What on earth made you go 
and ask a silly, rotten question like that? Any woman 
would be furious. You’ve delayed matters for at least three 
months.” 

“ Three months! I tell you, Carrie, I’m out of the run¬ 
ning for good and all.” 

“ Rubbish! A woman when she talks about the future 
means any time within the next three months. She can’t 
afford to look further ahead. There wasn’t any man when 
Biddy left London, that I’ll swear, so, if there is one now, 
it’s some one she met down here. She’s not mentioned any¬ 
body in her letters to me except that wretched parson we 
met at dinner that night and the youth who goes about 
with bare legs. I wonder — ” she paused and considered. 

“ But I say!” expostulated Reggie. “ He’s a — a sort of 
attendant or something of that sort to that old lunatic who 
digs for mussels all day. She couldn’t — ” 

His sister gave him a disdainful glance. 

“ My dear Reggie,” she said, “ why should you imagine 
men have the monopoly of philandering with those who 
are — well, not exactly in their own class? I seem to 
remember several young women in a different walk of life 
to your own on whom you set your affections. I recollect 
perfectly a young person who was employed as a manne¬ 
quin at Madame Empson’s,— Edie Cruikshank, I think the 
name was — who contrived to wangle an offer of marriage 
out of you.” 

Reggie wriggled uneasily in his chair. 

“ Why not? She was perfectly straight.” 

“ Perfectly, I should say. At any rate she refused to 
accept any monetary compensation for the mending of her 
broken heart,” sneered Mrs. Panter. “ I’m not saying a 
word against her character. I’m merely pointing out to 


290 


A CERTAIN MAN 


you that human affections are not always confined within 
the narrow limits of class distinctions, and that the breaking 
down of social barriers where love is concerned is not 
limited to the male sex. Besides, when all is said and done, 
Mr. Dibden may be, as you say, old what’s-his-name’s 
attendant but that doesn’t alter the fact that he’s a gentle¬ 
man.” 

“ Gentleman be damned,” said Reggie explosively. 
“ Why the feller’s nothing more or less than an upper 
servant. He ought to be walking out with the housemaid, 
not going about with Biddy just as if he was as good as 
she.” 

“ Do you mean the housemaid or Miss Cruikshank?” 
enquired Mrs. Panter sweetly. “ Don’t be a fool, Reggie. 
What a man is has nothing to do with either his morals or 
his manners. Whether you like it or not, we’ve got to take 
the fact that Mr. Dibden is a gentleman into our reckoning.” 

“ It strikes me we’re getting on a bit too fast. We don’t 
know whether he’s the man yet, for certain,” Reggie 
observed. 

“ Leave that to me,” his sister said. “ Look here. You’d 
better clear out of this and let me manage it alone. Go 
back to the Nelsons. I’ll say you were called away by 
business. If I’m to make any sort of job at it, I must do 
it my own way without you butting in and upsetting 
things.” 

“ It’s Sunday tomorrow. There aren’t any trains from 
this God-forsaken hole,” Reggie complained. 

“ There are from Truro. Motor there and catch one.” 

“ But I saw Biddy only this evening. She’ll know I 
couldn’t have been called away on business,” he objected. 

His sister stamped her foot impatiently. 

“ All the better if she does. She’ll think it’s because your 
heart’s broken at her refusing you. Go away now and 
leave me to think, and look here, don’t give up the match 
because you’re down on the first hole. This has got to be 
pulled through if possible. My dear husband’s just the 



A CERTAIN MAN 


291 


teeniest bit inclined to kick at the notion of my paying 
your bills instead of my own and if you aren’t jolly careful 
he’ll screw me up so tight that I shan’t be able to help 
you any more, however willing I may be. It’ll be Upper 
Tooting and the Tree for you then, not St. James and the 
Ritz. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Good-night, old boy.” 

Mrs. Panter was far too astute to try to glean the true 
state of affairs from Biddy herself. She betook herself to 
church the following morning, after seeing her brother off, 
carrying in her hand a large ivory-bound prayer book with 
gold filigree corners to it and as she went straight from 
matins down to lunch with Biddy, without calling in at the 
hotel on her way, it stood to reason that the somewhat con¬ 
spicuous book went with her. 

Mrs. Panter was always prepared for eventualities and in 
this case her foresight was justified, for just before she 
reached The Windy Mount, Mrs. Ffoulkes rumbled past her 
in a hired fly on her way back from the service at Surridge. 
She had met Carrie at tea with Biddy one day but she 
would probably not have stopped the carriage as she did if 
the ivory prayer book had not caught her eye. Anybody 
who advertised her church-going so boldly was certainly to 
be encouraged, she considered. 

“ Pull up, Towers,” she commanded, prodding the un¬ 
fortunate driver with the point of her umbrella as she did 
so. “ I’ll get out here and walk the rest of the way with 
Mrs. — er.” 

“ Panter, Kathleen,” prompted Miss Gunning, who occu¬ 
pied the seat beside her, in a loud whisper. 

“ I’m quite aware, Sibyl,” said Mrs. Ffoulkes, with 
offended dignity. “ Mrs. Pantile. Towers, take Miss Gun¬ 
ning on.” 

So the carriage was stopped and Mrs. Ffoulkes, with a 
great deal of stout leg encased in black worsted, climbed 
labouriously out of the vehicle which rolled on bearing her 
sister in it. 



292 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“ You’ve been to church, I see,” she observed, fixing the 
tome under her companion’s arm with a gimlet eye. 

“ Oh, yes,” returned Mrs. Panter, in tones that implied 
that it was her regular habit to attend church. “ I went to 
St. James’,” she added, wishing she knew what Mrs. 
Ffoulkes’s views were, as that would have given her the 
opportunity of condemning or approving the form of service 
accordingly. 

“ I’m lunching with Biddy,” she went on, after a little 
pause, during which Mrs. Ffoulkes, beyond a non-committal 
“ Ah,” gave no indication of her likes or dislikes in the 
matter of church services. “ I suppose that nice Mr. Dib- 
den will be there. He’s a good deal at The Windy Mount, 
isn’t he?” 

“ Too much,” said Mrs. Ffoulkes weightily. “ If Biddy 
isn’t very careful she’ll be getting herself talked about. A 
young man in his position is apt to take advantage of it 
without any encouragement.” 

“ Oh, but surely, dear Mrs. Ffoulkes, you aren’t suggest¬ 
ing that Biddy actually encourages him?” exclaimed Carrie 
Panter in accents which skillfully combined horror and 
incredulity. 

“ Biddy makes a companion of him,” Mrs. Ffoulkes 
informed her, ominously shaking her head. “ If that isn’t 
encouraging him, I don’t know what you call it. A word 
in season from you, dear Mrs. Pantile, might stop the poor 
silly child before it’s too late to draw back.” 

“ Not to Biddy,” said Mrs. Panter judicially. “ That 
would be fatal, but perhaps I might see my way to have a 
little talk with the young man. Young men generally listen 
to my advice,” she concluded with becoming modesty. 

“ Ah, you like mothering them, I can see,” Mrs. Ffoulkes 
observed. “ Well, my dear, do what you can.” 

“ Oh, indeed I will,” Carrie said earnestly, taking 
advantage of the fact that Mrs. Ffoulkes was staring 
straight ahead, to make a face at her. Mothering them 
indeed! 



A CERTAIN MAN 


293 


“ My son, John — you haven’t met my son I think, Mrs. 
— er —” 

“ Oh, yes I have. Such a dear, if you’ll forgive my saying 
so, Mrs. Ffoulkes,” Mrs. Panter exclaimed ecstatically. 
“ I met him at Biddy’s house in town.” 

“ My son John was inclined to be attracted by Biddy at 
one time,” continued Mrs. Ffoulkes, rambling on. “ But 
now — I really don’t know what to think — The dream of 
my life that I should live to see him happily married and 
all that. I hinted — oh quite delicately , you know,— when 
he was at home, the last night before he left, in fact, that 
perhaps, some day, he and dear Biddy might come together, 
and he was quite angry, furious, I might almost say, at the 
very suggestion. Said he and Biddy were nothing but 
friends and would never be anything else. Do you know I 
was left with the curious impression that he knew some¬ 
thing, and I couldn’t help wondering whether perhaps — 
well, Biddy has only herself to blame if people jump to con¬ 
clusions. Dear me! Here we are at the gate of The Windy 
Mount and I meant to have told you what Doctor Cator 
said to me when he came to see me last Wednesday. It 
was so interesting, but I can’t tell you in the road in case 
anybody overhears. Come to tea one afternoon and I’ll 
tell you then.” 

“ I’d love to,” said Mrs. Panter mendaciously. “ Good¬ 
bye.” 


Good-bye, dear Mrs. — er — 



CHAPTER XX 


Carrie Panter, when it suited her purpose, could make 
herself very charming and womanly and (though she had 
objected to Mrs. Ffoulkes employing the expression) moth¬ 
erly, and she proceeded to bring these qualities into play 
now with Roger. 

She was far too clever to attempt to appropriate him but 
when she could do it without her intention being too obvi¬ 
ous she would contrive to separate him from the rest of 
the party on some pretext or another and, once she had 
him to herself, would skillfully draw him on to talk of 
himself by feigning an interest in him which not only flat¬ 
tered his vanity but invited confidence. 

Roger didn’t go quite so far as to give her a full and 
particular history of his original introduction to Biddy, 
but she gathered, more from his expressions of gratitude 
than from any precise statement on his part, that it was 
to Biddy and John that he owed what comparative well¬ 
being he enjoyed now. 

It rather alarmed her to learn that Biddy had played the 
part of ministering angel. Pity was too akin to love to 
allow her to view the situation with complete equanimity, 
and the danger which, up to now, she had regarded as 
problematical, began to take on definite shape and to appear 
less improbable than had at first seemed likely. 

She didn’t fall into the error, as her brother had done, 
of confounding birth and position. She recognized the 
indisputable fact that Roger was a gentleman, but in the 
set to which she belonged and to which she aspired that 
Biddy should also belong, gentle birth, unless backed up by 
money or, at any rate, the plausibility of money, was of 
no account. To “ have a good time ” — at somebody 
else’s expense if possible, but by hook or by crook to have 

294 


A CERTAIN MAN 


295 


it,-—was the aim and object of each member of it, and it 
was each for himself and the devil take the hindermost. 
If one fell out of the ranks nobody bothered about him. 
The rabble swept on and left him, without so much as a 
backward glance of regret. 

In some ways, the fact that she realised that Roger was 
a gentleman made her task more difficult. Had he been 
Biddy’s inferior in class she could have used blunter 
methods than were admissible under the circumstances; 
less subtlety would have been required. 

However, Mrs. Panter was a past-mistress in the art of 
diplomacy and was equal to the occasion. 

Roger was an ingenuous youth and she found no difficulty 
in obtaining his confidence up to a point, but, in spite of 
all her endeavours, she could get nothing out of him as to 
his exact feelings towards Biddy, try as she might. He 
made no attempt to hide his gratitude but beyond that he 
would not go, and she had almost begun to think she was 
on the wrong tack when a conversation she had with him 
suddenly roused her suspicions. 

She had got Roger to herself by the simple expedient of 
waylaying him on the beach one afternoon and asking him 
to show her the caves with which the cliffs were studded, 
and more particularly the fern cave, which was about half 
a mile along the shore, the roof of which was hung with 
sea ferns. She abominated walking on the sand, though, 
for the most part, it was dry and hard, for there were, here 
and there, little streams which overflowed from the rock 
pools and meandered down to the edge of the sea and so 
shallow were they that they were difficult to see and you 
were in them before you knew they were there, and, even if 
you did see them, it meant, unless you didn’t mind getting 
your feet wet, which Carrie Panter did , a wild leap across, 
which was a hardly less irritating alternative. A lady got 
up to resemble, as closely as possible, a cinema-vampire 
doesn’t look her best jumping a stream, and Carrie Panter 
didn’t like not looking her best even in bed. 



296 


A CERTAIN MAN 


She had sneered at Roger as “ the youth who goes about 
with bare legs,” but all the same she couldn’t help admiring 
him as he swung along, lithe and supple, in shorts and 
sweater, his head bare showing golden glints in the brown 
hair. He seemed like the embodiment of youth and she 
found herself comparing him to some of the old young men 
she was accustomed to meet in town and the comparison was 
all in Roger’s favour. It was surprising how many of the men 
she knew appeared to suffer from varicose veins, but there 
was no sign of any such thing in his straight sunburnt legs 
which might have been modelled from those of some Greek 
statue. 

However she managed to reach the fern cave and when it 
had been inspected she sat herself down on the least 
knobbly-looking rock she could see before setting out on 
the rigours of the homeward journey, and Roger squatted 
on the sand beside her. 

“ I say, your husband’s in Africa, isn’t he?” he asked, 
staring straight out to sea with eyes that saw only the 
visions of his mind. 

“ Yes, poor dear,” replied Mrs. Panter, forcing a little 
sigh. “ All these miles of water between us,” she added, 
waving her hand vaguely in the direction of North America. 
“ Such a dreadful part where he is. That’s why I’m here 
and he’s there.” 

Once more she indicated the direction of North America 
with a carefully manicured forefinger. 

“ I wish I had a chance of getting there,” Roger said 
gloomily. 

Mrs. Panter abandoned her rapt contemplation of the 
ocean rolling, as she fondly imagined, between her and her 
spouse and gave a hasty glance down at the top of Roger’s 
head which was all she could see of him except the broad 
shoulders and the pedal end of a pair of mahogany legs 
encased in white sand shoes. 

“ Why?” she asked abruptly. 

“ Oh, I dunno,” he said. “ I’ve got to find a job of some 



A CERTAIN MAN 


297 


sort when I leave old Peal, and it struck me — I want to 
get right away. I want to — to try and forget things. It 
’ud be easier if one was right away.” 

“ What things?” 

He pulled himself up with a little jerk. 

“ Oh, I dunno. I suppose every one has things they want 
to forget, haven’t they? What’s the good of talking though? 
My only chance would be to work my passage out, and even 
then there’s nothing for me when I get there. It’s just a 
— a sort of dream which comes to nothing, like — like all 
one’s other dreams. It’s — it’s only a second-best dream at 
that,” he added whimsically. 

“I wonder what the very best dream was about?” 
observed Mrs. Panter with entire truthfulness. 

“ Oh, I can’t tell you that,” Roger said quickly. “ It’s — 
it’s a very private dream.” 

Mrs. Panter tweaked his hair playfully. 

“ Very private dreams that can’t be told even to a friend 
are always on one subject,” she said sapiently. “ You’re 
in love, dear boy.” 

“ You can guess as much as you like but I’m not going 
to tell you whether you’re right or wrong, so you’ll only 
be wasting your time.” 

She couldn’t see his face to note the expression on it but 
she saw his shoulders give an involuntary twitch of nervous¬ 
ness and she knew she had hit the nail on the head and 
driven it home. A little smile of triumph flashed on her lips 
and was gone again in a second. 

“ What a shame to tease you,” she said soothingly. “ I 
was only joking. But about this African project of yours. 
Why d’you say it’s no good talking about it? Why not 
consult Biddy or that nice Mr. Ffoulkes? I daresay they 
could help you.” 

He looked round at her, startled. 

“ I wouldn’t do that for the world,” he said in alarmed 
tones. “ Don’t say anything to Bid — Mrs. Rycroft. 
Swear you won’t?” 



298 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“Not if you don’t want me to, of course,” she replied, 
infusing a degree of hesitancy into her voice which did 
credit to her histrionic powers. The last thing she desired 
was to tell Biddy, for a plan was formulating in her mind 
and Biddy might spoil it all if she knew of it. Later on it 
might be useful to be able to say that Roger had sworn her 
to secrecy. 

“ Swear,” repeated Roger, deceived by her manner into 
thinking she contemplated saying something to Biddy. 

“ All right. I swear,” said Carrie Panter, still contriving 
to create an atmosphere of doubt as to the wisdom of 
silence. 

Roger heaved a sigh of relief. 

“ Look here,” Mrs. Panter said, after a little pause, “ if 
you really want a job in Africa, possibly my husband could 
find one for you. Would you like me to try?” 

“ I say! Would you really? By Jove! you are a brick.” 

“ Mind I can’t promise anything. Don’t go counting 
your chickens. When do you leave this job you’re at now?” 

“ The middle of November. I say, how soon can you 
write to your husband, do you think?” 

“ I write every mail,” Mrs. Panter said virtuously. 

Perhaps Roger had learned wisdom, or possibly, in the 
excitement of the moment, he forgot that Carrie Panter was 
a woman. Be that as it may, he certainly did not treat 
her to any of his heroics about refusing her aid on account 
of her sex, and when, later on, they parted company, it was 
understood between them that Mr. Panter was to be 
approached with a view to finding, if possible, a job for 
Roger in Africa. 

To mail a letter was much too slow a process for Mrs. 
Panter. The next morning a long cable was dispatched to 
her husband. 

It was not the first time he had been asked by his wife to 
find jobs for young men whom, for one reason or another, 
she wanted out of the way. Young men were all very well up 
to a certain point, but occasionally they showed no inclina- 



A CERTAIN MAN 


299 


tion to stop when they reached that point and when that 
happened they were safest at a distance, and, as a rule, the 
victims didn’t require much persuading to go, for Carrie 
Panter’s interest in them was exhausted only with their 
resources, so when that moment arrived they were generally 
only too glad to find an opening provided for them. 

Mr. Panter was favourably situated to act as intermediary 
in these little transactions for the climate of the particular 
district where he was was not exactly salubrious so that it 
constantly happened that either the managers of the various 
rubber plantations round about went sick and died or had to 
be repatriated, in which case his assistant took his place and 
a fresh sub-manager had to be appointed, or else the 
assistant manager himself fell a prey to one of the many 
diseases which riddled the white population of these parts 
and a substitute had to be found, and the same thing applied 
to the managers and clerks in the business houses in Dar-es- 
Salaam and Lindi, so that a continuous shifting of staffs 
was always in progress. 

Mrs. Panter told Roger what she had done, at the first 
opportunity. 

“ I couldn’t get an answer before I left here so I told 
Gavin to reply to London,” she told him. “ I’ll write and 
let you know the very minute I hear.” 

“ I don’t know how to thank you enough,” Roger said 
effusively. “ It’s simply ripping of you to take all this 
trouble for me.” 

“ You needn’t thank me. I’m only too glad to do it,” 
Mrs. Panter assured him with perfect sincerity. “ Besides 
you’ve not got a job yet.” 

Three days later Mrs. Panter returned to town and on 
the same day Biddy and Miss Bellamy also left. 

With the inconsistency of human nature Roger felt a little 
aggrieved that Biddy seemed almost eager to get back to 
London. Having taken the utmost pains to conceal his 
feelings with, as he fondly imagined, complete success, he 



300 


A CERTAIN MAN 


nevertheless felt irrationally disappointed that she said 
good-bye so dispassionately. He didn’t quite know what he 
expected, under the circumstances. For all he could tell 
to the contrary Biddy merely regarded him as a chance 
acquaintance who must not be allowed to degenerate into a 
bore. The play had been played out, the curtain had fallen, 
the lights in the theatre were being lowered, and the audi¬ 
ence was departing homewards leaving the poor mummer to 
strip off his fine raiment, clothe himself in his prosaic 
work-a-day garments, and slink forgotten and unrecognised 
into the darkness. That was how it all seemed to him, who 
knew nothing of the events of that critical evening when 
he had made his vow to John, with Biddy listening on the 
little wooden platform above his head where, had he looked 
up, he might have seen her standing in the moonlight. Per¬ 
haps if she had had any glimmering of Roger’s plans for 
the future, immature as those plans were, she would not 
have parted from him in quite such an offhand manner, a 
manner which she purposely made to appear as casual and 
ordinary as possible because she dared not do otherwise. 

Biddy, too, had her secret schemes which must be car¬ 
ried out before she could own to having been a deliberate 
eavesdropper. To betray herself now would be to jeopar¬ 
dise everything, and so anxious was she to seem perfectly 
natural and at her ease that she went to the opposite 
extreme and her farewell to Roger was stiff and formal. So 
stiff and formal was it indeed that, although she invited him 
to be sure to come to see her as soon as he came back to 
London, Roger, sore and disappointed, inwardly determined 
that here and now would be the parting of the ways. 

He had intended to tell her of the chance offered him of 
going out to Africa when it was settled one way or the 
other, but now the old morbid obstinacy, which had begun 
to take a lower seat, reasserted itself and he made up his 
mind, not without some bitterness at the back of it, that 
Biddy had lost all further interest in him and that, such 
being the case, he would be damned before he inflicted on 



A CERTAIN MAN 


301 


her unwilling ear a recital of his contemptible ambitions. 

Miss Bellamy was far more profuse in her expressions of 
regret at saying good-bye to Roger, but here again the 
uttered words had no more than a face value. She was 
actuated by precisely the contrary motives to those em¬ 
ployed by Biddy. She was so afraid her adieux might show 
the relief she felt at getting away without the vague sus¬ 
picions she had entertained becoming anything more that 
she bade him farewell with a degree of heartiness that sur- 
prisd even herself with the warmth she managed to infuse 
into it. 

Carrie Panter, travelling up to town in the same com¬ 
partment as Biddy and Miss Bellamy, watched the leave- 
taking appraisingly. She was not in the least deceived by 
the former’s feigned indifference as Roger was. She had 
trained herself to make a careful study of details which, 
to most people, would appear trifling and unimportant but 
which were often the key to some puzzling situation and 
she noticed how Biddy, the whole time she was platitudinis- 
ing to him, was fumbling nervously with the buttons of her 
glove, fastening and unfastening them until she ended by 
pulling one off altogether, and she noticed too how, when 
the train had started, Biddy made no attempt to pick up 
any of the papers and magazines with which she had pro¬ 
vided herself for the journey, but sat upright in her corner 
of the carriage, gazing out of the window with a rapt smile 
on her lips, lost in thoughts of some not unpleasant 
character. 

Taking all these things into consideration, Carrie was 
glad to remember, in spite of her husband being there, that 
Africa was quite a long way from England. It was a coun¬ 
try with immense possibilities for young men in Roger’s 
position and it would be an act of real charity to do all that 
lay in her power to provide him with an opening in that 
land of promise. 

It was nearly a fortnight before Roger heard from Mrs. 



302 


A CERTAIN MAN 


Panter, and he spent the interim in a state of such profound 
melancholy that even the usually unobservant Mr. Peal 
remarked the change in him though, being unversed in the 
ways of sentiment, he put it down to liver and, in a con¬ 
scientious endeavour to minister to a mind diseased, gave 
private instructions to Harcourt to introduce, surrepti¬ 
tiously, a pinch of Epsom Salts into Roger’s early morning 
cup of tea. 

When Mrs. Panter did write, however, she had satis¬ 
factory news to give. She had had no answer to her cable 
but, as good luck would have it, a certain Mr. Lord, armed 
with credentials from her husband, had called upon her. 

Mr. Lord, it turned out, was the representative in Dar- 
es-Salaam of a syndicate which had been formed to take 
over tracts of land in various parts of Tanganyika Territory 
and develop them. Sisal and rubber growing were its 
principal activities but it also dabbled in cocoanuts, arrow- 
root and pineapples, and, in the uplands, went in for rais¬ 
ing cattle. 

Mrs. Panter had gone out of her way to be gracious to 
Mr. Lord, and at the crucial moment, after a well thought 
out little dinner to which she had invited him, when he was 
feeling at peace with the world in general and Mrs. Panter 
and himself in particular, she had diplomatically brought the 
conversation round to likely openings for young men in the 
line of his business, and had elicited from him the intelli¬ 
gence that he was looking out for somebody for the post of 
accountant in his office in Dar-es-Salaam and if she had any 
young fellow she wanted to benefit and who would like the 
job, her nominee should have preferential treatment. Mrs. 
Panter had struck while the iron was hot and had men¬ 
tioned Roger’s name and the matter, subject to Roger’s 
consent, was as good as settled. 

In consideration of the fact that the syndicate would have 
to provide his passage money and outfit, Roger must not 
expect a large salary the first year, and he would have to 
sign an undertaking to bind himself for three years. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


303 


Mr. Lord would be sailing in a month’s time and would 
take Roger back with him, if, after an interview to be 
arranged immediately, they came to terms. Meanwhile, 
according to the promise he had extorted from her, she had 
said nothing to Biddy and she remained, etc. 

Roger received this letter with very mixed feelings. Now 
that the matter was almost clinched, his longing to get right 
away from any possibility of meeting Biddy was tempered 
with a sick dread of the prospect of that possibility being 
turned into an impossibility and he had to force himself to 
seek out Mr. Peal and get permission from him to go 
up to London for a couple of nights for the required 
interview. 

Mr. Peal was quite annoyingly congratulatory and gave 
his consent with a readiness which left Roger no loophole 
for altering his mind, and also persisted in presenting him 
with an unnecessarily fulsome testimonial to forward to his 
prospective employer, couched in such terms of eulogy that 
it would have been difficult for Mr. Lord to go back on 
his word even had he wished to do so. 

So the interview was arranged, and five days later Roger 
went up to town and met Mr. Lord at his hotel and that 
gentleman, scenting a good bargain, came to terms, exceed¬ 
ingly favourable to his syndicate, and almost before he 
realised what was happening, Roger found himself signing 
the paper which bound him for three years to his new 
master, spent a strenuous afternoon being fitted out with 
tropical kit, and was on his way back to Porth Ros with 
instructions to meet Mr. Lord without fail on board the 
5. S. Cape Noon sailing from Tilbury on Wednesday, 
November 29th. 

At intervals during the journey he took out his steamer 
ticket and looked at it with a growing sense of wonder. 
Like the old woman in the nursery rhyme he felt inclined 
to say “ This is none of I.” 

Six months ago he had not even known of Biddy’s 
existence and now — now he was running away from her 



304 


A CERTAIN MAN 


— deliberately putting the width of two continents between 
himself and her. 

Perhaps his desperate longing for her had never been 
quite so great as at this moment when he had burnt his 
boats behind him. He had only to close his eyes to see her 
as vividly and distinctly as though she actually stood before 
him and, because he hadn’t the courage to meet the vision, 
he resolutely kept them open staring out of the carriage 
window at the flying scenery in a fruitless endeavour to for¬ 
get the past and concentrate solely on the future. 

He was still fixed in his determination not to see Biddy 
again before he sailed; not even to tell her that he was 
sailing. To behold the reality of that persistent vision 
would be more than he could bear and yet, if he told her he 
was leaving, he would in common courtesy and gratitude be 
bound to call and say good-bye. She would be hurt that 
he had shut her out of his counsels but better that than to 
run the risk of losing his self-control and blurting out the 
truth. He would write her a letter to send back by the pilot. 
It would be a darned difficult letter to write because, even 
then, he would have to suppress his feelings while giving 
her adequate reasons for his strange conduct, but there 
was nothing else to be done. John, too! John would be 
thinking him an ungrateful brute, but he’d understand 
because he’d guess at the reasons and anyhow they’d prob¬ 
ably never meet again, so what did it matter? 

But all the same, in his heart of hearts, Roger knew that 
it did matter more than a little to him. In parting from 
John he was cutting himself adrift from one who had proved 
himself that thousandth man who “ will stand your friend 
with the whole round world agin you.” Never again would 
he find another to do for him what John had done. Once 
but once only, there comes into the life of each Jonathan a 
David who stands alone, apart from all other men as far as 
he is concerned. His place, once vacant,, can never be 
filled; and Roger, of deliberate intent, was going to make 
such a vacancy in John’s life. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


305 


He had no illusions on that score. He didn’t attempt to 
blind himself to facts by throwing dust in his own eyes. He 
knew, as men do know by some peculiar instinct vouchsafed 
them, that his and John’s souls were knit together and that 
in tearing his soul apart he must inevitably tear John’s 
also and the realisation of what he was doing stung him to 
the quick but he had no alternative. 

In some distant future, when, perhaps, Biddy was safely 
married to another man (God, how that thought tortured!) 
he would seek John out again and it would all be as if this 
interruption to their friendship had never happened. 



CHAPTER XXI 


When Biddy left Porth Ros on her return to town she 
was still in a state of uncertainty as to her best method of 
procedure in the light of what she had learned during those 
five minutes when she had stood listening to the conversa¬ 
tion between Roger and John at the bottom of Morant 
Steps. 

Before that, when she was still ignorant of Roger’s feel¬ 
ings towards her, she had no choice except to leave things 
to shape their own course, but now that she knew beyond 
any possibility of doubt that he loved her she felt as 
though some barrier had been removed which, up till then, 
had stretched across her path, obstructing her further 
progress. 

Now she was free to go on but she still hesitated, debat¬ 
ing within herself which way to take of the many that lay 
before her. 

She knew Roger well enough by this time to realise that 
what he had sworn he would keep to. That stubborn pride 
of his, that obstinate determination to preserve his inde¬ 
pendence at whatever cost, was a wall of stone separating 
them against which she might dash herself in vain in a 
fruitless endeavour to overthrow it without making the 
very smallest impression. She would only bruise herself 
in the effort and, at the end, the wall would still be standing 
solid and impregnable as ever. 

Very well then! The only way of getting to the other 
side of a wall that resists all one’s struggles to dislodge it is 
to climb it, therefore Biddy cast around for the easiest 
method of scrambling up one side and dropping down the 
other, and the first thing she had to do before she could 
hope to be successful was to lighten herself of all encum¬ 
brances, chiefest among which was the wretched money left 
to her by her late husband. 

306 


A CERTAIN MAN 


307 


She felt quite resentful that Colonel Rycroft had left her 
his entire fortune without any restrictions whatsoever. He 
could so easily have inserted a clause into his will by which 
she forfeited it automatically in the event of remarriage. 
Lots of men did it, and nobody thought any the worse of 
them except perhaps, in some cases, their widows. It 
would have saved her such a lot of trouble if only James 
had made some such proviso. 

Both Biddy and her husband had been singularly devoid 
of relatives of any sort. Biddy had some nebulous second 
cousins in Australia or New Zealand — she wasn’t quite 
sure which — but she had never heard Colonel Rycroft 
mention a single living relation. He had once told her that 
he was an only son, and she, noticing that he said “ son ” 
and not “ child,” had asked if he had ever had any sisters, 
whereupon he had been seriously and, as she considered, 
unreasonably put out and read her a homily on the obliquity 
of prying into other people’s affairs which effectually 
stopped any further curiosity on her part. She vaguely 
supposed he must have a sister who had died and that the 
subject was a painful one and there the matter ended. 

That if she wanted Roger, she must get rid of the money 
was certain. 

The question was how best to do so. 

Belle, of course, must be provided for out of it, and the 
remainder she would have to divide among deserving 
charities. 

She had five hundred a year of her very own which she 
would keep. Roger surely couldn’t object to that when 
it was brought to his knowledge that, for his sake, she had 
given up so much. 

Not that she grudged giving it up. She had counted the 
cost and found it well worth the price demanded. It was 
rather exciting to buy happiness in the open market like 
this. The chance came to so few people! She would go 
and consult young Mr. Viney when she got back to London. 
Young Mr. Viney, sometimes addressed by the older clerks 



308 


A CERTAIN MAN 


who had served under his father as “ Mr. Edwyn,” was 
the senior partner in the firm of Viney, Hammett and 
Pearce, Solicitors. He was a rotund little man with a cheer¬ 
ful red face and a bald head and, although on the wrong side 
of sixty, owed the qualifying epithet to the fact that his 
father was still alive. 

Viney, Hammett and Pearce had been the solicitors for 
the Rycroft family for the last sixty years and managed 
all Biddy’s affairs for her. 

Young Mr. Viney would be very upset at her decision, 
no doubt. She must be prepared to face his displeasure and 
confute all the arguments and legal quibbles he would bring 
to bear to turn her from her purpose, but she didn’t care a 
button about that. She had made up her mind and nothing 
would make her alter it. 

That was her fixed determination when she left Porth 
Ros, but before she had time to pay her threatened visit 
to her solicitors she stumbled upon a discovery that caused 
her to alter, not her mind, but the disposition of the money 
in question. 

It was on a Saturday that she returned home and on the 
Sunday she went into the library, a dismal little room at 
the back of the house which had been where her husband 
had been accustomed to withdraw himself when he wanted 
to be alone and undisturbed, and it was here he expected 
her to report herself on her arrival from any function she 
had attended or even any walk she had taken unaccom¬ 
panied by him. 

To this room the distraught cook was summoned when 
the joint was underdone or overdone as the case might be, to 
hear her master’s candid opinion of her incapabilities, and 
from this room she issued in tears of impotent wrath, to 
give a month’s warning to her mistress. 

Biddy hated the room and all its associations and rarely 
entered it, but on this occasion she wanted to look up 
something in a book of reference which was in there, and 
went in for that reason. Most of the available floor space 


A CERTAIN MAN 


309 


was taken up by a large knee-hole writing table standing 
in the middle of the room, its leather-covered surface left 
bare and empty with none of the customary appurtenances 
of its kind to hide its nakedness. There was no litter of 
papers, no inkstand or pen-tray, nothing to show it had 
ever been used, and its abandoned appearance gave the 
key-note to the whole room. 

But on this particular afternoon, when Biddy entered the 
library, she at once noticed a box standing in the center 
of this table which had never been there before. It was an 
old-fashioned box of morocco with brass corners and her 
husband’s initials, J. R., stamped in old lettering on the top. 

To the best of her recollections she had never set eyes on 
it before and she had no idea where it could have come 
from. She rang the bell and, after a few minutes’ delay, 
it was answered by a housemaid. 

“ Do you know anything about this, Eileen?” she 
enquired, indicating the box. 

“We found it on the top of the bookshelf while you were 
away, Mum,” the girl answered. “ We were doing out the 
room, Mum, and there it was. I thought perhaps as you 
didn’t know it was there, so I fetched it down and put it 
on the table, meaning to tell you about it when you came 
back, only it slipped my memory. I hope I didn’t do 
wrong, Mum?” 

“ No, it was quite right, Eileen, thank you. That was 
all,” Biddy said and the maid withdrew. 

When she was gone Biddy picked up the box and 
examined it curiously, wondering what it contained. The 
key was missing and the box locked, but she fetched a lever 
and, after a little struggle, managed to pry the lid open. 

Inside were a photograph and a bundle of letters tied up 
with red tape. 

The photograph was that of a girl, dressed in the fashion 
of the middle of the eighteen sixties, and on the back was 
written in an Italian hand, “Elizabeth Rycroft, aged 18, 
1866.” 


310 


A CERTAIN MAN 


Elizabeth Rycroft! Who on earth was Elizabeth 
Rycroft? Biddy had never heard of such a person. She 
knew it could not be her mother-in-law, for one thing 
because that lady had died in 1860, six years before the 
photograph was taken, and, for another, because her name 
had not been Elizabeth but Jean. Perhaps the letters would 
give some clue. 

She untied the packet. 

There were about twenty envelopes in it, all directed in 
the same handwriting to Francis Rycroft, Esqre, followed 
by an address which Biddy recognised as that of the house 
where her father-in-law had lived. 

She took out the first enclosure. It was a rather stilted 
schoolgirl epistle, beginning “ My dear Father,” and ending 
up “ Your affectionate daughter, Elizabeth Rycroft,” and 
contained nothing but the description of the dull routine of 
school life. There were some nine or ten of these, then a 
few, evidently written while the writer was staying away 
on visits, presumably having left school, and finally, at the 
bottom of the bundle, four letters which made Biddy shed 
tears of sympathy for the author of them, for they were 
pathetic little appeals to be allowed to marry the man of 
her choice, appeals which were evidently paid no attention 
to or ignored for each grew more piteous and entreating 
than the one before. 

The last of all was a mere almost illegible scrawl. No 
beginning “ My dear Father,” in this one; no ending “ Your 
affectionate daughter.” It plunged right into the matter 
in hand without any softening preliminaries. 

“ I have gone away with James Graindorge! By the 
time you get this I shall be married to him. You are cruel. 
Elizabeth.” 

That was all it contained, but the few words told Biddy 
all she wanted to know. 

The girl in the photograph was her sister-in-law, her 
husband’s sister, and because she had followed the dictates 
of her heart, she had been cast off by her family. That was 



A CERTAIN MAN 


311 


why her husband had been so angry when she had asked 
him whether he had ever had a sister. It was explained 
now. 

Poor Elizabeth, who had gone away with James 
Graindorge! 

Why did the name seem familiar to her? She was posi¬ 
tive she had come across it somewhere lately. 

Suddenly it flashed across her mind. That funny woman 
she had talked to on the rocks at Porth Ros. “ Graindorge, 
the French for Barleycorn, you know, only so much more 
distingue I always think.” 

She had told Biddy some involved story about her 
mother-in-law having married against her people’s wishes 
and having, thereby, lost her share of her father’s money. 

“ My father-in-law’s name was James, but as he’s dead it 
doesn’t matter.” 

Biddy remembered that because she had remarked that 
it was the same name as Colonel Rycroft. 

But if that were so, the funny woman’s husband was 
the son of this girl in the photograph, her husband’s sister, 
and the funny woman herself was Biddy’s niece by 
marriage! 

The realisation of this was too much for Biddy. She sat 
down in the nearest chair and laughed till she cried as she 
pictured the faces of her friends as she introduced her to 
them. 

“ You haven’t met my niece, Mrs. Graindorge (the 
French for barleycorn, you know).” 

But with the realisation came another which stopped her 
laughter in the air, as it were. 

Here, straight from heaven, was the solution of the dis¬ 
posal of the Rycroft money. It was not an act of charity. 
It was their money which she would simply be handing back 
to the rightful owners. Biddy heaved a great sigh of relief. 
Now it was all plain sailing. She could go to “ young ” 
Mr. Viney with her plan cut and dried, and although he 
might, and doubtless would, protest, she would now have 



312 


A CERTAIN MAN 


a certain amount of justice to bolster up her scheme. At 
the worst she could be accused of nothing more than an act 
of quixotism, and if he started quoting her husband’s wishes, 
she would snap her fingers in his face. 

She went off the next morning without a word to Belle, to 
her interview, having taken the precaution to make an 
appointment by telephone with Mr. Viney. 

The senior partner received her in his private office with 
the bland smile he reserved for his more influential clients, 
a smile which, as Biddy proceeded to unfold her project, 
gradually became more and more strained and unnatural, 
until it finally vanished altogether. 

When she had finished there was a long pause during 
which Mr. Viney, metaphorically winded, could only sit 
staring at her with large round eyes of petrified amazement, 
as though she were some horrific exhibition in a dime 
museum. 

“ But, my dear lady,” he expostulated when he had 
recovered his breath sufficiently to speak. “ Have you 
considered? Your late husband left this money to you — ” 

“ Then it’s mine to do what I like with, isn’t it?” Biddy 
observed calmly. 

“ In a sense, yes,” agreed Mr. Viney, unwillingly. “ But 
one must take the wishes of the — er — deceased into 
account. I’m sure you would not desire to act in any way 
contrary to your husband’s — er — intentions.” 

“What were his intentions?” Biddy demanded. 

“ To — er — provide for you,” replied Mr. Viney un¬ 
comfortably. 

Biddy nodded her head. 

“ I’m provided for all right,” she assured the harassed 
lawyer confidently. “ You needn’t have any worry on that 
score.” 

“ This — er — Graindorge, now. What proof have you 
that she is not an imposter?” Mr. Viney wanted to know, 
changing his tactics which, up to now, didn’t appear to be 
meeting with any success. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


313 


“ I suppose you’ll next be suggesting that the poor 
creature forged the letters I found and put them in that 
box,” Biddy said sarcastically. “You can’t explain them 
away however hard you try.” 

“ People are very clever nowadays,” Mr. Viney remarked, 
pessimistically shaking his head. 

“ Well, this person wasn’t. She was a perfect fool, poor 
dear,” declared Biddy. “ Look here, Mr. Viney, if you 
aren’t going to carry this business through for me please say 
so and have done with it, and I’ll go to somebody else, but 
if you are, don’t let us waste time suspecting Mrs. Grain- 
dorge of hatching impossible plots to do me out of my 
money, because I can assure you she hasn’t got the brains to 
do it. I’m off to Putney to see my niece now. If you like 
you can put on your hat and come with me.” 

“ It’s all very disturbing, very unusual,” observed Mr. 
Viney quaveringly. “ I really hardly know what to say. 
Of course, Mrs. Rycroft, I don’t want you to fall into 
unscrupulous hands. Our firm has had the interests of 
your husband’s family at heart for such a great number of 
years. Pray don’t act hastily in this most important 
matter. You might regret your impulsive decision when it 
was too late to retract.” 

“ Why should I?” asked Biddy judicially. 

Mr. Viney’s red face got a shade redder. 

“ Well, you — you might want to — er — marry again. 
You’re — you’re still young, Mrs. Rycroft,” he said 
nervously. 

“ So you think I ought to wait for some one who will over¬ 
look my defects in consideration of my money! That’s not 
very complimentary to me, Mr. Viney.” 

“ I meant nothing of the sort,” almost screamed the 
badgered little man in an agony. 

“ Well, that’s what it sounded like,” said Biddy imper¬ 
turbably. “ So you won’t come and inspect my new-found 
relatives? Now, once and for all, are you going to see this 
job through for me or aren’t you? I mean to do it, so your 



314 


A CERTAIN MAN 


refusal won’t make an atom of difference in the long 
run.” 

“ You leave me very little choice,” said Mr. Viney rue¬ 
fully. “ I’ll strike a bargain with you. If you’ll let me make 
inquiries and find out that this Mrs.— What’s-her-name — 
is the person you think she must be before we go any 
further, I’ll act for you. I’m bound to guard against 
imposture. It’s a — a sacred duty.” 

“ If you’d only seen her!” Biddy murmured. “ All right. 
I’m willing to agree to that, but I’m going down to Putney 
now.” 

“ Pray don’t commit yourself,” Mr. Viney besought her 
anxiously. 

“ You couldn’t commit yourself with dear Edie if you 
tried ever so hard,” Biddy informed him. 

“ Where to, Ma’am?” enquired Rands when Biddy was in 
the car. 

“Gracious! I’ve forgotten the address. I know it’s 
Putney, and I know the number’s thirteen, because she 
hoped I wouldn’t be frightened away by it, but beyond that 
I’ve no more idea than the man in the moon.” 

“ We might ask at the post office, Ma’am,” suggested 
Rands helpfully. “ What’s the name of the person you’re 
wanting to find?” 

Anybody who lived outside the three mile radius was, to 
Rands, a person. 

“ Graindorge,” Biddy told him. 

“ Beg pardon, Ma’am?” 

“ The French for barleycorn, Rands.” 

“ P’raps it ’ud be better if you was to tell me when we 
get to the post office, Ma’am,” Rands said respectfully. 
“To the best of my recollection we didn’t ’ave such things 
when I was in France.” 

“ I’m sure you didn’t,” Biddy said twinkling. “ The one 
I met was British to the — the kernel. All- right. Drive to 
the post office in Putney High Street.” 

“ British to the colonel,” the mystified Rands muttered to 



A CERTAIN MAN 


315 


himself, as he started the car. “ I never ’eard of any such 
things when I was in the army. Kind of a aid-der-conk, I 
reckon.” 

All down the King’s Road, Biddy examined the passing 
busses with an interest she had never displayed in these 
vehicles before. Ere long, she supposed, an omnibus would 
be her chief means of getting about, and she felt quite a 
thrill of sympathy for a stout lady she espied climbing 
laboriously into one with her arms full of parcels. Perhaps 
some day she would be thus hauled unceremoniously on 
to the step by an impatient conductor who had no time 
to waste in politeness, her rapid progress impeded by the 
results of the morning’s household shopping. 

When the car drew up at the post office Biddy got out. 
She thought it would probably be quicker to enquire herself 
than to leave it to Rands. She was certain he would never 
master the name, after his perplexity at the mere mention 
of it. 

She found what she wanted without any trouble in a 
local directory. Jerram Mansions were not more than three 
minutes run from the High Street. There was no lift and 
No. 13 was on the fourth floor which entailed toiling up 
eight flights of stone stairs. 

“ I won’t have a top flat anyhow,” she thought to her¬ 
self, as she panted her way up. “I’d almost rather live in 
a row.” 

No. 13 was at the front of the building. The door which 
gave admittance to it had panels of ground glass through 
which gleamed curtains of vivid rose pink. 

Biddy rang the bell and it appeared to have the same 
result on the inhabitants of the flat as the prince’s kiss on 
the lips of the sleeping beauty had on the courtiers in the 
palace in the wood. Where a moment before there had been 
absolute silence pandemonium arose. Doors banged, voices 
shouted excitedly to one another, and a small dog started 
yapping in a shrill querulous falsetto. And predominant 
among all the other noises could be distinguished one voice 



316 


A CERTAIN MAN 


which, once having begun, went on without intermission as 
if it had been wound up and could only stop when the 
machinery ran down. 

“ There’s the front door bell,” it said. “ Helen, Edith, 
there’s the front door bell. Where are you, Helen? Chang¬ 
ing your blouse? Well, be quick, dear, and answer the 
door. No, Edith can’t go. She’s cooking the dinner and 
she can’t leave the pudding. I’d go only I’m bathing Con¬ 
rad Grenville, and he’s all soapy, and if I take my eye off 
him for a second he’ll be out of his tub and rolling on the 
drawing room carpet. I wonder who it can be. Perhaps 
it’s Mrs. Goad. She said she’d call round sometime with 
that pattern for knickers. Or it may be the gas-meter. 
Edith, Edith, did your father leave any money for the gas 
bill? Oh, dear. I meant to have reminded him, because it 
does save such a lot of trouble to give it to the gas-meter 
when he comes to measure. Helen, aren’t you ready yet? 
Sewing a button on? Good gracious, child, you’re as bad as 
King What’s-his-name who played the fiddle when Rome 
was burning. So unpractical at a time like that, I always 
thought. My dear mother, your grandmother of course, 
always declared that want of method was the thief of time, 
like that other thing, I forget it’s name for the moment, but 
it begins with a P, that Shakespeare invented. Wasn’t 
it Shakespeare? Well, somebody like him then. Now that’ll 
worry me all day. Stay still, Conrad. You shall have a 
biscuit when I’ve dried you. Oh, there you are, Helen. Just 
wait half a minute till I shut the bathroom door.” 

There was the sound of a door being violently banged and 
then, after a slight pause, the door, at which Biddy stood 
patiently waiting till either the button, the pudding or Con¬ 
rad Grenville could be left while someone dashed out to 
admit her, was opened and she found herself face to face 
with a tall slim girl who looked rather astonished at seeing 
a stranger. 

“ Yes?” the girl said, in somewhat dubious tones, as 
though she thought there must be some mistake and that 



A CERTAIN MAN. 317 

Biddy could not possibly want to see any of the occupants 
of the flat. 

“ It’s all right,” Biddy couldn’t resist saying, “ I haven’t 
called for a subscription. I wonder if I could see your 
mother? I know she’s busy bathing Conrad Grenville, who¬ 
ever Conrad Grenville may be — I couldn’t help overhearing 
that — but if she could leave him without endangering the 
drawing room carpet, I’d be so glad. You’re Helen Grain- 
dorge, aren’t you?” 

“ Yes, I’m Helen Graindorge.” 

The girl evidently would have liked to say, “ Who are you 
who make so free with my name?” but she restrained the 
impulse, and, instead, invited Biddy in. 

The noise of splashing from behind the closed door of 
the bathroom, or what Biddy inferred was the bathroom, 
indicated that the cleaning of the mysterious Conrad 
Grenville was still in process. 

“ I’m frightfully sorry to seem impertinent, but who 
is Conrad Grenville and why does he choose the moment 
when he is soapy — if it comes to that, why does he choose 
any moment to — to roll on the drawing room carpet?” 
Biddy could not refrain from asking, as Helen Graindorge 
ushered her into a small overcrowded sitting room. 

For the first time the girl regarded Biddy with interest 
and allowed herself to smile. 

“ He’s the dog,” she explained. “ We called him Conrad 
Grenville after the name of the man who gave him to us 
because they’re so like one another. Did you think we 
kept a mentally afflicted boarder?” she glanced round the 
room as she spoke with disdain. “ It’s all we can do to 
squeeze in here ourselves when we’re all at home. I’ll tell 
Mother you’re here, though I expect she knows it. There 
isn’t much chance of not knowing things in this flat. What 
name shall I say?” 

Biddy considered. She was sorely tempted to send a mes¬ 
sage to Mrs. Graindorge to tell her Aunt Bridget had called 
to see her, but she resisted manfully. For all she knew 


318 


A CERTAIN MAN 


her niece by marriage might suffer from a weak heart. 

“ Will you tell her the lady she met at Porth Ros,” she said 
instead. The girl went out and the next minute Biddy 
heard Mrs. Graindorge exclaiming. 

“ But how kind. Just dry Conrad, dear, while I go and 
wash my hands and tidy my hair. You don’t happen to 
know what I did with that packet of hairpins I bought on 
Saturday, do you? They may be on the dresser in the 
kitchen. No. I remember. How awkward! I put them in a 
vase on the drawing room mantelpiece so as to have them 
handy. Well I must just manage without them, that’s 
all. How nice it must be to have a maid to take all these 
little worries off one’s shoulders, but I might as well wish 
for the moon. Not that I ever should wish for such a 
ridiculous thing, for I really shouldn’t know what on 
earth to do with it, if I had it. My dear mother, who of 
course was your grandmother, had a rhyme she used to 
quote to us when we were children, ‘ If wishes were horses 
beggars would ride; if watches were turnips’ — ” here a 
door was shut between Biddy and the voice and the rest was 
lost in a confused murmur. 

Biddy looked round the room while she was waiting. It 
was filled to overflowing with gimcrack furniture chosen, 
apparently, more with an eye to its cheapness than its 
durability. There was a plethora of photographs, mostly 
of the Graindorge family at various periods of their career, 
all inscribed with footnotes, as it were, stating the name 
and age of the original at the time each was taken, 
and occasionally, the place where the enormity was 
perpetrated. 

“ Willie. Aged 6 years.” (It read like an obituary 
notice, Biddy reflected.) “ Fred, August 12, 1914. 

Bournmouth. 8th day of the war.” “ Helen and Edith, 
with Grandpapa.” (That must be James Graindorge.) 
“ Father and the children. The Zoo.” (This one was open 
to misconception, but Biddy imagined it must have been 
taken to commemorate a visit to the Zoological Gardens.) 



A CERTAIN MAN 


319 


“ Josh, as a baby.” Considering Josh was in long clothes, 
it seemed hardly necessary to emphasise the fact. 

But what chiefly interested Biddy was to see, in the place 
of honour on the mantelpiece, a duplicate of the photograph 
she had found in the box. If she had had any last bick¬ 
erings of doubt the sight of this dispelled it. 

Even this had its descriptive footnote. 

“A mother’s love — how sweet the name! 

What is a mother’s love? 

— A noble, pure and tender flame, 

Enkindled from above.” 

Since the late Mrs. Graindorge had died at the birth of 
her one and only child, it seemed a little out of place to 
illumine her memory with a flame that, owing to lack of 
opportunity, had never had the chance of being enkindled 
from above but Biddy supposed it gave some melancholy 
satisfaction to her son, or, what was more likely, to her 
daughter-in-law, to wallow in sentiment. 

At this point in her meditations Mrs. Graindorge came 
in, her rosy face exuding pleasure at every pore. 

“ How kind, dear Mrs. — er — ” she paused uncertainly. 
“ It’s very stupid of me, but do you know I cannot, for the 
moment, recall your name.” 

“ You couldn’t, you know,” Biddy reminded her. “ You 
never heard it.” 

A look of relief passed over Mrs. Graindorge’s 
countenance. 

“ That would account for it then, wouldn’t it?” she 
observed, in tones of the utmost satisfaction. “ How kind 
of you to call.” 

“ I must apologise for the unorthodox hour,” Biddy said. 
“ But I think when I tell you the reason of my coming 
you will excuse it.” 

“ So friendly to come in the morning,” remarked her 
hostess. “ If I’d known you were coming I’d have put off 
bathing dear little Conrad until tomorrow. He ought by 
rights to have had his bath on Saturday, but what with one 



320 


A CERTAIN MAN 


thing and another it got overlooked, and of course yesterday 
being Sunday was a dies non. How useful those foreign 
expressions are, aren’t they — at least I suppose one can 
call a dead language foreign. They seem to convey one’s 
meaning in a nutshell, don’t they? It would have taken me 
quite a long time in English. All about going to church 
and the Sunday joint to cook, and one’s best dress and so 
on. My girls take a Sunday school class. So good of them, 
don’t you think? Girls nowadays are so apt to care for 
nothing but frivolities. No chaperones and a dancing 
partner! When I was young one was talked about if one 
danced twice running with the same gentleman, and three 
times was as good as a proposal of marriage. That dreadful 
war upset things so, didn’t it? A girl met a man one day 
and found herself married to him the next and a widow the 
day after. People talk of marriage being a lottery, but I’m 
sure in those days it was nothing more or less than a 
catch-as-catch-can. I’m more thankful than I can say that 
my girls — ” 

“ My name is Rycroft,” Biddy interrupted desperately. 

Mrs. Graindorge beamed at her complacently. 

“ Now what a curious coincidence,” she exclaimed briskly. 
“ My husband’s mother’s maiden name was Rycroft. 
Wouldn’t it be strange if we turned out to be relations? I 
told you all about her, didn’t I? Of course her people cast 
her off when she ran away with my father-in-law. She 
ought, by rights, to have come in for quite a lot of money 
when her father died, but he never forgave her and every 
penny went to the brother. I must say that I did have a 
sneaking hope that when he died four years ago he would 
have let bygones be bygones and left poor Jack something 
but I’m not certain if he even knew of his existence. He 
was quite a distinguished man in his way, Colonel Rycroft, 
the V. C., you know. I daresay you’ve heard of him?” 

“ Yes, I have,” Biddy replied without any further beating 
about the bush. “ He was my husband. That’s why I’ve 
come to see you today.” 



A CERTAIN MAN 


321 


“ I beg your pardon?” 

Mrs. Graindorge’s eyes were almost starting out of her 
head with astonishment and alarm. She had come to the 
conclusion that her visitor was a dangerous lunatic and she 
was striving hard to recollect the best way to treat any¬ 
body thus afflicted. She knew they mustn’t be contradicted 
but beyond that her mind was a blank. 

“ Fm not mad,” Biddy reassured her, reading her 
thoughts. “ It’s perfectly true what I’m telling you. 
Colonel Rycroft was my husband.” 

“ But — but he was my husband’s uncle,” bleated Mrs. 
Graindorge feebly, making the statement as though it dis¬ 
posed of Biddy’s claims once and for all. 

Biddy dimpled. 

“Yes, and therefore I’m your husband’s aunt — by 
marriage.” 

“ Aunt by marriage?” 

Mrs. Graindorge echoed the words in the listless tones of 
one in an hypnotic trance, staring at Biddy spellbound. 

“I — I can’t believe it,” she said at last, brushing the 
back of her hand across her eyes as if to brush away some 
optical delusion. 

“ Neither can I. All the same it’s an indisputable fact,” 
Biddy said resolutely. “ I haven’t got my marriage lines 
with me, but I’ve got this.” 

She produced the photograph out of her bag and thrust 
it into Mrs. Graindorge’s nerveless fingers. 

Mrs. Graindorge gazed at it in silent amazement then, 
from it, to its counterpart on the mantelpiece, while Biddy 
explained how she had lighted on it. 

“ I’ll call Helen and Edith,” she said at last, heavily. It 
was obvious she felt unequal to coping with the situation 
unaided. 

“ No. Don’t do that. I’ve something I want to tell you 
first.” 

Mrs. Graindorge, who had half risen from her chair, sank 
back again into it. 



322 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“ Aunt by marriage/’ she repeated once more. 

This fact appeared to impress her more than any other. 
If Biddy had been an elderly woman, or even a woman of 
her own age, she could have brought herself to believe the 
news that had just been imparted to her, but to be asked 
to credit the statement that this girl sitting opposite to her 
was her husband’s aunt by marriage was too much for her 
powers of assimilation. 

“ Pull yourself together, Edith,” said Biddy sharply. 

Thus adjured, Mrs. Graindorge, stimulated by the un¬ 
authorised use of her Christian name, did as she was told 
and, with a distinct effort, pulled herself together. 

Biddy had determined that the only way to make any 
impression on her new relation was to give her the plain 
unvarnished truth and keep nothing back. She must throw 
reticence to the winds and expose her innermost secrets. 
She hated having to do it, but there was no alternative. 
Unless it were hammered into her brain with swift incisive 
strokes, Mrs. Graindorge would never be made to under¬ 
stand the vital necessity of keeping back none of the price. 

Biddy saw that she was one of those warm-hearted, im¬ 
pulsive creatures who would raise a storm of protest at the 
idea of benefiting at somebody else’s expense, therefore it 
was essential that it should be well rubbed in that any 
benefit would consist in her, or rather Mr. Graindorge, 
accepting the total amount of the Rycroft money which was 
at present in Biddy’s possession. The sole condition that 
Biddy intended to make was that an annual sum of two 
hundred and fifty pounds should be set aside for the use 
of Miss Bellamy, out of the income. All the rest was to go 
to her husband’s nephew. 

It was not an easy matter to tell her story, Biddy found. 
She shrank from entering into all the necessary details with 
this woman whom she hardly knew but it had to be done, 
so she nerved herself to her task and plunged into the 
recital of her meeting with Roger, the close companionship 
into which they were thrown together at Porth Ros, her 



A CERTAIN MAN 


323 


realisation that her feelings towards him were gradually 
undergoing a change and that friendship was deepening into 
love, the unsuccessful efforts she made to deceive herself, 
the part she played to deceive the outside world and Roger 
above all, and, finally, the conversation she had overheard 
between him and John when he had sworn, in spite of his 
confession of loving her, never to marry her as long as she 
had one single penny of Colonel Rycroft’s money. 

“ So you see,” she ended wistfully, “ if your husband won’t 
take it — and after all he has more right to it than I — I 
shall have to get rid of it some other way. I’m buying my 
happiness with it, and if he won’t sell it to me, why, I must 
go elsewhere.” 

It spoke volumes for the interest Biddy’s narrative 
evoked in Mrs. Graindorge that not once, while it was in 
progress, did she attempt to utter a word. It was only 
when Biddy ceased speaking that she opened her mouth. 

“ My dear,” she said then, wiping the tears from her eyes. 
“ It’s for all the world like a fairy story. When you come 
to consider what a number of rocks there are scattered about 
promiscuously at the seaside it seems as if it must have 
been ordained that I should choose that particular one. I’m 
sure at the time I never thought anything except that it 
looked nice and flat and comfortable to sit on, and yet 
there I was obeying the dictates of Providence without 
knowing it. That just shows you how true it is that ‘ God 
works in a mysterious way His wonders to perform,’ for it 
was nothing but some dirty orange peel lying about that 
prevented me settling myself on a rock higher up. I’ve a 
perfect horror of orange peel, haven’t you? I had an uncle 
once who slipped on a piece and broke his ankle, at least 
if it wasn’t orange peel it was a banana skin, but anyhow, 
whichever it was, he broke his ankle. The principle’s the 
same, isn’t it? After all, we’re told in the Bible to be 
careful what we call common or unclean, though I’m sure 
I should never have connected that text with orange peel 
before this happened for if there’s one thing more than 



324 


A CERTAIN MAN 


another that I consider common and unclean it is remnants 
of food lying about. It attracts flies so, doesn’t it? Talking 
of flies, do you know anything about the Royal Air Force? 
Fred is simply mad about aeroplanes and all that kind of 
thing. Perhaps now he would be able to work for a commis¬ 
sion in it. It was out of the question before, of course. 
Personally I think they’re dreadful things. In a motor 
car you are on the ground if anything goes wrong. Well, 
so you are in an aeroplane too eventually of course, but 
you know what I mean. You’re there sooner. But, my dear, 
I really don’t know what to say about this money. Of 
course I can’t help feeling that Jack has a right to some 
of it, but it seems too dreadful to take it all. I don’t think 
Jack will approve of that.” 

“He’s got to,” Biddy said decidedly. “ I’ve told you 
already that if he won’t take it I shall have to get rid of 
it in some other way.” 

“ Well, dear — by the way, what is your name? Biddy? 
You won’t expect me to call you Aunt Biddy, will you? I 
mean it would be really too absurd considering you’re so 
much younger than me, but if I may call you Biddy? Well, 
dear Biddy, the best thing would be for you to see Jack and 
discuss it with him. I should probably only make a muddle 
of it, for I’m so excited I hardly know whether I’m on my 
head or my heels. I shan’t say anything to the children 
until it’s quite settled, for they would be making all sorts 
of plans and it would be such a disappointment if it all came 
to nothing. You do think it will be all right, don’t you? 
It’s been such a struggle and one longs to be able to give 
one’s children the very best. Oh! I never thought! Have 
you any children? Because if so of course we couldn’t 
dream of allowing you to do this.” 

Biddy reassured her on this point, and Mrs. Graindorge 
heaved a sigh of relief. 

“ That's a good thing,” she said. “ At least I don’t exactly 
mean that. Oh, dear! If the mere idea of money makes me 
as selfish as that, whatever shall I be like if we really get it! 



A CERTAIN MAN 


325 


I do hope it’s not true what people say — that money alters 
a person’s character and makes them horrid. But I’m sure 
it can’t be, because if it was you wouldn’t be so sweet and 
kind. Are you really going? Won’t you stay to lunch? 
It’s only hashed mutton and a fig pudding.” 

“No. I really must go,” Biddy, who had risen in the 
middle of this speech, said. “ Could Mr. Graindorge come 
and see me this evening do you think?” 

“ Oh, I’m sure he could, but however I’m going to explain 
to him I can’t conceive,” said Mrs. Graindorge agitatedly. 
“ What on earth can I tell him?” 

“ Once more the dimples appeared in Biddy’s cheeks. 

“ Tell him his rich aunt from whom he has expectations 
has sent for him,” she said. “ Good-bye, Edith, and I think 
you may safely make plans.” 

Mr. Graindorge accordingly paid a visit to Biddy that 
evening. She had cancelled an engagement to join a 
theatre party on purpose not to miss him if he called. 

Miss Bellamy, luckily, had gone to see a married niece 
who lived out at Willesden and would not be back that 
night, so there was no need for explanations at present. 
They could come later when Biddy had settled up things. 

Mr. Graindorge was a tall harassed individual who looked 
as if life had dealt hardly with him. 

His wife had given him an incoherent account of the 
morning’s interview, so he was more or less prepared for 
what Biddy told him. 

“ I really hardly know what to say, Mrs. Rycroft,” he 
said in worried tones, when she had unfolded her plan. “It 
seems like taking advantage of an impulsive act of gen¬ 
erosity on your part. One can’t accept a large sum of 
money from anybody (I am assuming it is a large sum), 
as if one was picking up sixpence lying in the gutter. I 
must say I have grave doubts as to the wisdom of your 
proposal.” 

“ Even after the reasons I have given?” Biddy said. 
“Look here, Mr. Graindorge, if I’d been happy with your 


326 


A CERTAIN MAN 


uncle, it might have been different, but I wasn’t happy. 
Now I’ve the chance of being happy, haven’t I the right 
to take it? Am I to forego it because of this wretched 
money? It belongs to you much more than to me, but I 
tell you frankly that if you refuse it I shall still get rid of 
it, so you needn’t think you’re going to stop me by doing 
so. Surely it’s better that your grandfather’s fortune should 
benefit you and your children than any charity?” 

Mr. Graindorge eyed her gravely for a minute. 

“ Supposing things didn’t pan out as you’ve arranged that 
they should?” he said at length. “ What would you feel 
like if you lost your money and got nothing in return?” 

“ I’m not afraid,” she replied confidently. “ I’m not afraid 
because I know, you see. If I wasn’t positive, I wouldn’t 
do it. Don’t you see, don’t you see? Because I know, I 
can go to Roger directly this barrier is removed and tell 
him I know. Oh, do be sensible about it and help me.” 

It took Biddy a long time to wring a half-grudging assent 
from Mr. Graindorge, but at last when he realised she was 
determined he gave way. 

“But mind, it’s only on condition that if things don’t go 
right you take this money back. Is that understood?” 

“ That’s an easy condition. I don’t mind agreeing to 
that,” Biddy said confidently. “ Thank you — Jack.” 



CHAPTER XXII 


“ And that’s the end,” said Mr. Peal, a little wistfully. 

“ That’s the end,” echoed Roger. “ I’m glad it’s finished 
before I go.” 

“ This day week you sail?” 

Roger nodded. 

“ Yes. This day week,” he said. “ I’ve — I’ve loved being 
here, Sir. You’ve been awfully decent to me. I’m afraid 
you must have found me a most awful duffer.” 

Mr. Peal and Roger were sitting at the table in the 
“ Aquarium,” and the former had just dictated the last 
sentence which brought to an end the great work on Mol¬ 
luscs which was to demonstrate to a hitherto callous world 
the lovable nature of a mussel and how the limpet had, up 
to this, suffered from a want of appreciation on the part 
of the outside world, due to ignorance and a certain apathy 
which prevented the general public from studying the habits 
of that engaging little creature. 

Roger had laughed with Biddy many a time over the seri¬ 
ousness with which Mr. Peal treated the subject, but there 
was a curious sort of regret at the thought that his work 
had finished. 

It marked the close to yet another chapter in the book of 
his life, and the one he was about to begin was full of all 
kinds of unknown things. He felt like someone who, 
poised ready to dive into the deep water, hesitates wonder¬ 
ing whether the water will be cold or not. 

“ You’ve been of the greatest possible assistance to me,” 
Mr. Peal said, in his pedantic manner. “ Added to which 
your companionship has been an unalloyed pleasure to me. 
One loses touch with youth so easily. It is good to be 
reminded of it sometimes. I shall miss you when you go 
on Monday. The house will seem strangely quiet and dull. 
I fear you must have found it so yourself at times.” 


328 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“ I’ve been awfully happy, Sir,” Roger said with perfect 
truthfulness. “ I have, honestly. You see, before I came 
to you I had rather a rotten time of it, and to come here 
was — was like getting into bed when you’re tired out. I 
revelled in the peace and quiet of it all. 

“ Shall you think it very impertinent on my part, if I ask 
you a question?” enquired Mr. Peal diffidently. 

“ Of course I shan’t. Fire away, Sir.” 

“ It’s rather a — a leading one,” said Mr. Peal anxiously. 

“ Well, I reserve to myself the right to answer it or not 
as I think fit. What is it?” 

“ Why didn’t you want anyone to know you had signed 
on for this job abroad? Why did you ask me to tell nobody, 
especially John?” 

Roger shifted uncomfortably in his seat. 

“ I don’t want them to know till I’ve actually gone,” he 
said doggedly. 

“ But why?” persisted Mr. Peal. “ If you’ll forgive my 
saying so, it seems a little arbitrary, doesn’t it? I should 
have thought that John, above all people, might have been 
taken into your confidence.” 

“ I didn’t want John to know because—Oh, well, I dunno. 
I hate good-byes. If I told John, other people ’ud be almost 
bound to find out,” Roger explained awkwardly. 

“ Other people? But you told me that, except for John 
and Mrs. Rycroft, you had no friends. If that’s so— Oh!” 
A sudden light dawned upon Mr. Peal. So then, it was 
Mrs. Rycroft the boy was running away from! He got up 
from where he sat and trotting round the table put his hand 
on Roger’s shoulder. 

“ I have been young and now am old,” he said. “ So it’s 
like that, is it? Tch, tch, tch.” 

“ Yes. It’s like that, Sir,” Roger said, biting his lips to 
keep back the emotion which threatened to get the better 
of him. “ Unlike my prototype, however, I’m not desiring 
to be fed with the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s 
table.” 


A CERTAIN MAN 


329 


“ So you’re running away.” 

“ Yes, if you choose to put it that way.” 

Mr. Peal took his hand off Roger’s shoulder and pulling 
up a chair sat down beside him. 

“ I want you to be patient and listen to me for a few 
minutes,” he said. “ I’m an old man, at any rate old 
compared to you. Did you ever hear that I had been 
married?” 

Roger nodded assent. 

“ I was twenty-seven when I married — a year older 
than you are now. I suppose I was always a dry-as-dust 
individual, even when I was young, but that didn’t prevent 
my loving Drina, my wife, as passionately as anybody else 
of my age could have done, and she, God bless her, for some 
extraordinary reason which I’ve never been able to under¬ 
stand, loved me. I don’t think two people could have been 
happier than we were, and when she told me of — of her 
hopes, the cup seemed overflowing. Evening after evening 
we spent, planning and discussing and building up castles in 
the air. It was all so wonderful and splendid and certain. 
We neither of us gave a thought to any possible danger, or, 
if we did, we each of us kept it from the other. Nothing 
could go wrong. Fate couldn’t be so unkind. But, my 
dear, Fate was unkind. My son was born on December the 
sixteenth. On January the seventh my wife died, and two 
days later her baby followed her. There was a big storm 
that night, I remember, and I sat listening to the wind 
beating against the windows, and every now and then I’d 
start up to go and see if they were all right, forgetting — my 
God, actually forgetting that they were beyond the reach 
of anything that could hurt them. Thirty-seven years ago 
next January, and ever since then, I’ve been lonely, and yet, 
in a way, not lonely, for I’ve always had a curious fancy 
that they’re not far away. I used to sit in the bare empty 
drawing room where we’d sat together, and I’d talk with 
her about our son, and we watched him together grow from 
a baby into a boy, from a boy into a youth and then into 



330 


A CERTAIN MAN 


a young man. Together, we went through all the dear 
delights that other parents do. The servants, I think, fan¬ 
cied my grief had turned my brain, when they heard me 
talking to myself in the evenings, but, in reality, I was 
keeping myself sane. I used to picture it all so vividly to 
myself that it all seemed as if it was actually happening. 
My boy was something more to me than a mere fantasy. 
I could describe every detail of his appearance, each inflec¬ 
tion of his voice* I built up a real living personality, so 
real and so living that it filled the emptiness of my 
existence. I daresay all this sounds like the maggot 
of a disordered brain and perhaps it was, but it made 
life, if not happy, at least endurable, and I deliberately 
cultivated the illusion that my two dear ghosts crept 
back in the silence of the long evenings, as I sat by 
myself, and bore me company. Roger, my dear, if my boy 
had lived, he would have come to me in all his troubles and 
perplexities, because we should have been such friends. 
Couldn’t you, don’t you think, tell me all about your 
troubles and perplexities? Perhaps I could help you.” 

“ You’re most awfully good, Sir. But there’s nothing 
that can be helped,” Roger said. “ It’s just the general 
cussedness of things. I ought to have run away long before 
this, only, you see, I’d nowhere to run to, and I’m afraid I 
wasn’t very anxious to run. I kept putting off the evil day 
but now I have the chance to — to get away from things 
I’ve got to take it, only I — well, I suppose I’m a coward, 
but I daren’t risk saying good-bye. I — I daren’t do any¬ 
thing that might weaken my resolution. I’ve the courage of 
my convictions only so long as I’m not called upon to 
defend them. If I started upon explanations I should only 
get involved and blurt out the very things I’m trying to 
hide. It’s far better I should do what I’m doing and slink 
off without a word to anybody beforehand, than give myself 
away. Thank you for telling me what you have, Sir. I 
shall miss you too. Perhaps — if ever I come back — you’ll 
let me come and see you. This has been the nearest 



A CERTAIN MAN. 331 

approach to a home I’ve had since my father died. I shall 
often think of it out there.” 

“ Think of it as if it were your home,” Mr. Peal said. 
“ Perhaps if you did, it would make things seem a little 
less lonely for you. 

Nothing more was said between them, but on the follow¬ 
ing Monday when Roger left, Mr. Peal, as he said good-bye 
to him, repeated the offer. 

“ I’d like to feel you were thinking of this as your home,” 
he remarked again. “ Come back to me, Roger, when your 
three years of Africa are finished.” 

“ If I come back at all, I will,” Roger promised him. 
“ But I shall never come back,” he added within himself 
forlornly. 

Roger had elected to leave Porth Ros on the Monday 
the day but one before his ship sailed, because a sudden 
whim had seized him to go down to Harwood on the Tues¬ 
day and have a last look round at all the old familiar 
haunts of his childish days. 

He had quite made up his mind that it would be years 
before he saw his native country again, if indeed he ever 
did, and he wanted to carry away with him into exile a fresh 
memory of the scenes he had once loved. He also had a 
kind of idea that they would interpose themselves between 
the new life of exile and those six months during which he 
had begun dimly to comprehend that all that had been 
before had been nothing but the preface to life itself. 

It was seven o’clock when the train reached Paddington. 
He had booked a room at the Liverpool Street Hotel for 
two nights and as his taxi glided noiselessly and swiftly 
along the Marylebone Road he looked about him curiously. 

The street lamps were ablaze with light and they 
reminded him of those not far distant days when he had 
wandered aimlessly beneath them with no object in view, 
no purpose to be fulfilled, no goal to be reached at the end 
of the journey. He shivered slightly at the recollection. 
It seemed almost impossible to realise that he could be the 



332 


A CERTAIN MAN 


same person as the ragged unkempt vagabond of six months 
ago. 

He glanced down at the neat blue serge suit he had on 
and wondered whether, if he were to meet one of his 
Embankment acquaintances, he would be recognised. “ A 
bleeding toff!” That would be how he would be described 
now by such an one. 

Arrived at the hotel, he had a solitary dinner in the coffee 
room and when he had finished it strolled out into the 
street and boarding an omnibus journeyed to Trafalgar 
Square and from there made his way down Northumberland 
Avenue to the river. 

It was too early for the habitues of the Embankment to 
have settled for the night but he went and sat on a seat 
and tried to recapture some of the sensations he had been 
wont to experience on those other occasions, but he found 
the experiment too pungent for his liking and didn’t perse¬ 
vere for long. The only thing it did was to accentuate his 
presumption in having dared to fall in love with Biddy and 
to strengthen his determination to “ run away,” as Mr. 
Peal had expressed it, without seeing her again, because, 
if he did see her, he must inevitably betray himself. It 
would be more than human endurance would be capable of 
to bid her farewell as if she were just a mere ordinary being 
who didn’t matter much one way or the other. He would 
be bound to make a fool of himself and, if he did, he 
couldn’t bear to carry with him into the outer darkness, as 
a last memory, the cold stare of contempt with which she 
would meet his impetuosity, if, throwing discretion to the 
winds, he so far forgot himself as to display his heart on 
his sleeve. 

He walked back to the hotel because he felt the need 
of movement. It was no good brooding. The die had 
been cast. Very soon now he would have shaken the dust 
of his native land off his feet and all that had been, all that 
could never be, would have passed into the limbo of for¬ 
gotten things, because out there, with a great gulf fixed 


A CERTAIN MAN 


333 


between him and his desire, he would compel forgetfulness. 
So he told himself, deliberately shutting his eyes to the fact 
that oblivion is not so easy of attainment and that memory, 
the master, not the servant of the brain, untrammelled by 
those physical conditions which confine the body in a 
limited area, is free to roam abroad as it will, bound 
neither by time nor distance. 

He went into the smoking room when he reached the 
hotel, and sitting down at a writing table, proceeded to write 
his farewell letters to John and Biddy. 

It was a more difficult task than he had anticipated. In 
the various epistles which he had sent them since they left 
Porth Ros, he had carefully omitted any reference to his 
plans for the future and had ignored the queries they had 
put from time to time respecting them, so it was no simple 
matter to suddenly and without warning break the news 
that he was leaving for Africa immediately; that, in point 
of fact, he would be gone by the time they received the 
intimation. They would think it a poor recompense after 
all they had done for him to be treated with such scant 
ceremony. That couldn’t be helped. It took him more 
than an hour to find the words he wanted, and even then 
he felt dissatisfied with the result of his labours, but it was 
the best of which he was capable. To John he could write 
out more fully than he could to Biddy, for John knew how 
things stood with him, and he told him all without reserve, 
but Biddy was a different proposition. How was he to say 
enough without saying too much? How could he make her 
understand he was not ungrateful, in spite of his thankless 
behaviour to her, and yet modify his language sufficiently 
to keep out of it any trace of the longing which over¬ 
whelmed him as he realised what it was costing him to cut 
himself adrift? The effect was a rather stiff formal com¬ 
munication which stated bald facts without any attempts to 
mitigate them, and it was only in the concluding sentence 
that he allowed a hint of his true feelings to peep out. 

“ I was too afraid of myself to come and say good-bye,” 



334 


A CERTAIN MAN 


he wrote. “ How can a shadow of the night linger on in 
the light of day? Do you remember my saying that to you 
the first time we met? The light has driven me away and 
I’ve got to go. Good-bye. God bless you always. Roger.” 

He put the letters into envelopes and when he had 
directed them, slipped them into the pocket of his coat. 
He mustn’t post them tonight, otherwise they would reach 
their respective destinations before he had gone. 

He went to bed but not to sleep. That insatiable longing, 
which the mere penning of his farewell letter to Biddy had 
aroused, refused to leave him, and it was a restless bed¬ 
fellow. All night long it dug sharp claws into Roger’s 
breast, and he tossed and turned through the hours of dark¬ 
ness unable to get away from it, until at half-past six, when 
the first faint glimmer of dawn stole into the room, he could 
bear it no longer but got up and dressing himself went 
downstairs and out into the open air, the intolerable ache 
of it all hounding him through the unawakened city streets, 
an Orestes pursued by the Furies who grinned and gibbered 
at his heels, snarling and yapping like a pack of craven 
curs, not daring to attack yet never granting him a moment’s 
respite from their insistent clamour. 

For two hours he paced the streets and at half-past eight, 
when the first signs of life began to stir around him he 
returned to the hotel, bathed and shaved himself, and by 
ten o’clock was on his way to Charing Cross en route for 
Harwood. 

Now that he was on the eve of leaving England for 
good, (was it for good or evil?) it didn’t seem.to matter 
to him that he must face those who had suffered through 
his father’s folly, his father’s unreckoning love for him. 
All that mattered was that he must have some memory, 
to carry away with him into the outer darkness, of people 
who had once cared for him, of places connected with the 
days before the years had drawn nigh in which he had no 
pleasure. 

There was no Dick Jolland to turn to now for comfort 



A CERTAIN MAN 


335 


and advice, but the whole neighbourhood was fragrant with 
memories of Dick and he had a kind of feeling that in 
Harwood he would be talking with ghosts, that there he 
would be nearer Dick than anywhere else, and he sorely 
needed comfort. 

Those poignantly pathetic verses of William Cory’s rang 
through his brain as he flashed through the country, with 
the trees flaunting their last remnants of finery in the dying 
leaves which still clung fluttering to the branches in patches 
of crimson and gold and bronze. 

“ They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead. 

They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears 
to shed. 

I wept as I remembered how often you and I 

Had tired the sun with talking, and sent him down the 
sky. . . . 

And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest 

A handful of gray ashes, long long ago at rest, 

Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales awake, 

For death he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.” 

There would be no nightingales now in the copses where 
he and Dick had often listened to them on moonlight nights 
in May. The pleasant voices would be silent, but there was 
not a lane, not a meadow, that would not speak to him of 
Dick. Each tree and bush would lean forward and whisper 
in his ear, “ Do you remember?” Those memories at least 
were permitted, whatever others were forbidden him. 

Roger followed the way from Tallis station which John 
had taken earlier in the year but the hedges which then had 
been full of the promise of Spring were now brown and bare, 
except here and there where the beeches clung tenaciously 
to their parchment leaves, refusing to let go of them. 

He didn’t however turn off across the fields to The Hill 
Plat, but skirted round by the road until he came to the 



336 


A CERTAIN MAN 


familiar vicarage neighbouring the little gray church with 
its lichen-covered roof of tiles. 

He had no right now to enter the former, but he made 
his way into the latter. 

The old sexton, pottering about on some business of his 
own, peered through his horn-rimmed glasses at the dis¬ 
turber of his peace, his dim eyes not recognising the 
newcomer. 

“ Hullo, Hebble, don’t you know me?” Roger said, and 
at the sound of his voice old Hebblethwaite Trumbull 
dropped the armful of books he was carrying and shambled 
down the aisle towards him. 

“ Well, dang me, if it ain’t Master Roger!” he exclaimed 
in high quavering accents. “ Dang me, if it ain’t! Dear, dear, 
dear! And where may you have been all this long time?” 

“ Oh, up and down, but mostly down,” Roger said. “ How 
are things here?” 

The old man shook a dubious head. 

“Not like they was in the late vicar’s time,” he com¬ 
plained. “Mr. Penry, he’s a nice enough gentleman. I 
haven’t no fault to find with him, but I can’t foller these 
yer new-fangled ways o’ going on. They put me out o’ my 
reckoning. Mr. Penry ’owls the prayers, he don’t say ’em. 
Toning is what he calls it, so I calls Sunday the day o’ 
’tonement now. I told him so one day and he couldn’t help 
but laugh, though I could see he wasn’t best pleased inside. 

‘ The day o’ ’tonement, that’s what I calls Sunday,’ I sez to 
him (he laughed wheezily). Eh, well, he’s young. Maybe 
he’ll grow out of it. Are you making a long stay, Master 
Roger?” 

“No. I’m off to Africa tomorrow. I only came to have 
a last look round at the old place.” 

“ Dear, dear, dear! Off to Africa, are you? That’s a 
main long way away, ain’t it? Would it be a couple o’ 
days in a boat?” enquired the old man. 

“ Four weeks and a bit over to the part I’m going to,” 
Roger told him. 


A CERTAIN MAN 


337 


“ Four weeks! That’s a journey, now, ain’t it? You’ll be 
tired by the time you get there. Can you get food on the 
boat, do you reckon?” 

Roger laughed. 

“ Oh, yes. I can get food on the boat all right,” he said. 

“ I was thinking sandwiches ’ud be a bit stale by the 
time you got there if you had to carry your own, and a 
tidy big packet of ’em too you’d have to take. I once went 
on a boat at Brighton, that year your dad took the choir 
there for an outing. The Skylark it was called. I didn’t 
reckon much of it, I remember.” 

“ Were you sick?” Roger asked. 

“ No, I wasn’t downrightly sick but I didn’t feel easy in 
the stomach. Half an hour was enough for me. I couldn’t 
have stood another half hour, let alone four weeks. It fair 
turns me to think of it, but I dessay the boat you go on ’ull 
be a bit bigger.” 

“ Yes. A bit,” Roger assented gravely. 

“ Africa! Let’s see, the folk there are black, ain’t they?” 

“ Some are. Not all.” 

“ Well, I hope you’ll keep your colour, I’m sure. You’re 
well enough as you are. I can’t seem to picture you 
black.” 

“ I can’t quite picture myself,” Roger said. “ We must 
hope for the best.” 

“ Ah, that’s the thing to do. Hope for the best and keep 
in the shade all you can. It’s the sun does it, I’ve heard 
tell,” counselled the old man. “ When’ll you be coming 
back?” 

“ I don’t know. Perhaps never.” 

“ Then I shan’t see you again this side o’ the grave,” 
observed Trumbull in matter-of-fact tones. “ There’s just 
the chance we may meet beyond but it don’t do to be too 
certain, though, to be sure, things often turn out different 
to what one expects. I’m glad to have had this sight of you 
anyhow, Master Roger.” 

“ I must go now. Good-bye, Hebble.” 



338 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“ Good-bye, Master Roger.” 

Roger shook hands quickly and went out of the church. 
This severance of old ties was a hateful business. It hurt 
even to say good-bye to old Trumbull, and he half regretted 
having come, but now he was bound to go and see the Jol- 
lands. Hebble would be sure to tell them that he had seen 
Roger and that he was going to Africa, and it would wound 
them to the quick if he slunk off now without bidding them 
farewell. He made his way to The Hill Plat. Mrs. Jolland 
was in the kitchen with the door open and Roger walked 
straight in without knocking, as he had been accustomed to 
do in bygone days. She looked round as he entered and caught 
her breath at the sight of the familiar figure, but she kept 
her composure and greeted him as though it were only a 
matter of days since she had last set eyes on him. 

“ Why, Master Roger,” she said. “ It’s good to see you 
back again, and how are you? You look — tired.” 

She substituted the word “ tired ” for “ unhappy,” which 
was what she had it in her mind to say. 

“ Well, Mother Louisa,” Roger said, going up and kissing 
her, “ you didn’t expect to see me, did you?” 

“ I’ve been expecting you ever since Dick died,” Mrs. 
Jolland said quietly. She was touched at the way he had 
called her by the old name he had given her in his childish 
days and by the natural unaffected manner in which he had 
kissed her, for it told her more than anything else could 
have done that whatever he had suffered it had not changed 
the Roger she had mothered as a little boy, the Roger who 
had come to her for comfort and coddling in all his baby 
troubles and griefs, the Roger whom her Dick had loved 
and moulded, and made a man of. So connected with Dick 
was he in her mind that, seeing him standing there, tall and 
strong and handsome, it almost seemed as if some part of 
her own dear son had returned to her. Some innate knowl¬ 
edge had told her that one of these days Roger would be 
unable to resist coming back, and ever since that visit John 
had paid her in May she had waited for this moment. 




A CERTAIN MAN 


339 


“I’ve come to say good-bye,” Roger said, bursting out 
with the information without any preliminary leading up to 
the object of his unheralded arrival. “ I’m going abroad 
tomorrow, to Africa.” 

A hardly perceptible quiver of apprehension ran through 
Mrs. Jolland. Dick, Berry, Walter, three of her boys, she 
had bade farewell to on their departure for distant lands, 
and now this other one who was so almost one of her boys, 
was following their example. Dick lay buried in an alien 
grave; Berry and Wally had both married in the countries 
of their adoption, and, except that they wrote to her 
regularly, were nearly as much separated from her as though 
they too had died, and now Roger, whom Dick, in the very 
last letter she ever had from him, had commended to her 
care, was found only to be lost again. 

“ What’s taking you there?” she asked, resolutely choking 
back the protest which rose to her lips. If he was looking 
forward to going with pleasurable anticipations, she wouldn’t 
spoil those anticipations by any display of disappointment; 
if he was dreading the break, she would not make it any 
harder for him by useless opposition. Besides, in either 
case, it was too late to alter things, even if she had felt 
inclined to do so. 

“ I’ve got a job,” Roger said in answer to her question. 

“ A good one?” 

“ Good enough. It gets me out of England anyhow.” 

“ You want to get out of England?” 

“ Yes I — I want to.” 

Something in Roger’s voice made Mrs. Jolland glance at 
him sharply. She knew him so well from those old days 
when he had run in and out of her house like one of her 
own children that her keen “ mother ” sense could detect 
there was something behind all this assumption of care¬ 
lessness. It was just the way he had spoken when anything 
had happened to hurt or injure him when he was a boy. 
He would swagger into her kitchen, his hands in his pockets, 
whistling unconcernedly, and after wandering round aim- 



340 


A CERTAIN MAN 


lessly for a few seconds, would announce casually, “ I’ve 
cut myself a bit,” and, removing a hand from a pocket, 
would hold out for inspection a finger sliced nearly to the 
bone as if it were something he thought might possibly 
interest a mere woman but which he considered was hardly 
worthy of a man’s attention. She had always, on these 
occasions, treated the bandaging of the wound in the light 
of a concession to her feminine weakness and not a real 
necessity and had thus made Roger appear the dispenser 
and not the recipient of a favour. 

It had been the same when he had been wounded in his 
pride. He would stroll in in an offhand manner which 
strove to convey the impression that, finding himself 
in the vicinity, he thought he’d look in and see what 
was doing and after the same absorption in the exami¬ 
nation of the common articles of household use, which 
he had seen a hundred times before, would bring out 
the cause of his lacerated feelings as if it were of no 
importance whatever only he knew women liked that kind 
of rotten items of news. “ Alf Gildersleeve told Dick I 
funked fighting Algie Raymond,” and the statement would 
be followed by a little laugh which refused, in spite of 
all Roger’s efforts, to convey the contempt which such a 
calumny deserved. Mrs. Jolland had known better than 
to show indignation at the baseness of the charge. All she 
had been used to say in token that the subject wasn’t 
worth a moment’s consideration was “ How silly, and to 
Dick of all people! Will you run into the garden, Master 
Roger, and fetch me a handful of parsley?” and Roger would 
trot off to do her bidding and when he came back with the 
parsley or whatever else it might be that Mrs. Jolland had 
asked him to fetch for her, he would have forgotten the 
hurt to his pride, and no further mention would be made 
about it. 

He had the same detached manner now as he had been 
used to have on those occasions and from it Mrs. Jolland 
clearly perceived that something, though what she could 



A CERTAIN MAN 


341 


not tell, had happened to make him “ want to get out of 
England.” 

She would have given worlds to know what the reason 
was which was driving him away. She longed to be taken 
into his confidence,to feel that she was sufficiently important 
in his estimation to be entrusted with the motives which 
impelled that desire to shake the dust of his native land 
from off his feet, but she was too well acquainted with his 
moods of obstinacy to question him outright. The slightest 
suspicion that she was trying to force his hand and he 
would immediately curl up into his shell and no power on 
earth could dislodge him. If he chose to tell her it woifd' 
come out casually, sooner or later; if he was determined to 
keep silence on the subject her longing would remain 
unsatisfied. 

So Mrs. Jolland, being a sensible woman, refrained from 
plying him with vain questions as to causes and contented 
herself with more practical enquiries as to the name of his 
ship, the hour of his sailing and the likely date when he 
would arrive at his destination. She also incidentally found 
out the port for which he was bound and the nature of the 
job on which he was going. 

“ Did that nice Mr. Ffoulkes find it for you?” she asked, 
after she had ascertained what his work was, as far as 
Roger knew himself. 

“ No.” 

The curt monosyllable set her thoughts wandering in a 
new direction. 

“ Have you told him about it?” she enquired, a sudden 
suspicion rising in her mind to disquiet her. 

“ Not yet.” 

“ You haven’t quarrelled with him?” was the next ques¬ 
tion. 

Roger laughed. 

“ Good Lord, no,” he said. It takes two to make a quar¬ 
rel, doesn’t it? If I wanted to make one of them, old John 
would never make the other. It’s only I don’t want him to 



342 


A CERTAIN MAN 


know till IVe actually sailed because I — I hate saying 
good-bye to people.” 

“ But you’ve come down here to say good-bye to me,” 
reasoned Mrs. Jolland. 

“ Yes, but you’re — different.” 

How was she “ different,” Mrs. Jolland wondered, with a 
little stab at her heart. Was it then a matter of indifference 
to Roger to part with her who had mothered him? Was she 
of less account to him than this new friend? Why should it 
be less hateful to say good-bye to her than to Mr. Ffoulkes? 

These and similar queries chased one another through 
Mrs. Jolland’s brain as, outwardly unruffled, she went about 
her preparations for the mid-day meal, stirring her sauce¬ 
pans, basting the joint which slowly revolved in front of the 
kitchen fire on the old-fashioned spit which she still used 
in preference to baking it in the oven. It was only after 
due deliberation that Mrs. Jolland, with a recollection of 
his hesitancy over the statement that he hated saying good¬ 
bye to people, came to the conclusion that the reason Roger 
gave for not seeing Mr. Ffoulkes before he sailed was an 
excuse, and not the real explanation of his secrecy. That 
was it, of course. She saw it clearly now. 

She was perhaps nearer to being angry with Roger than 
she had ever been before. Mr. Ffoulkes had been very 
kind to him. It was to Mr. Ffoulkes that Roger owed the 
job which had set him on his feet again and it wasn’t right 
for him to treat his benefactor in this cavalier fashion. 

“ You know your business best, I suppose,” she said at 
length, but all the same she wasn’t altogether, convinced 
that he did. He hadn’t so many friends that he could 
afford to run the risk of offending one beyond redemption. 
She hated the idea of his appearing ungrateful to one who, 
above all others, deserved his gratitude, but she hated still 
more to blame him, even though it were only inwardly. 

“ It’ll turn out for the best in the long run,” she went 
on, as much to reassure herself as for anything else. “ You’ll 
come out on top, like you have before.” 


A CERTAIN MAN 


343 


“ I was dragged out on top,” Roger said with candour. 

“ As long as you got there it doesn’t seem to me it much 
matters whether you climbed or were pushed,” Mrs. Jolland 
said straightforwardly. “ I wonder now — ” 

But at this juncture Mr. Jolland, George and Winnie 
came in to their dinner, followed by the farm hands, and 
in the exclamations of delight and astonishment which 
ensued, Mrs. Jolland was recalled from her wonderings for 
the time. 

Roger stayed with the Jollands till half-past five, and 
when he got up to go Mrs. Jolland came with him as far as 
the gate. 

“ I say, the post’s gone, hasn’t it?” he asked on the way. 

“ It went at a quarter past five,” Mrs. Jolland said. 
“ Did you want to catch it?” 

Roger produced the two letters he had written in the 
hotel smoking room the night before. 

“ It doesn’t matter,” he said. “ I wish you’d put these in 
the box, though.” 

“ You can post them in London,” Mrs. Jolland reminded 
him. 

“ Oh, they’ll be safer if I give them to you. I — I might 
lose them.” 

“ I will, if you like, of course.” 

Mrs. Jolland took the letters and put them into the 
pocket of her apron. 

“ I won’t forget them,” she said. 

At the gate she paused. 

“You’ll — write and let me hear how you get on,” she 
said. “ Oh, Master Roger, my dear, why didn’t you come 
back to me sooner? Why did you stop away when you 
needed me so badly? But there! It’s no good talking 
about it now. You won’t catch your train if you don’t 
hurry.” 

Now that the hour for saying good-bye had come her 
one desire was to get it over and done with. It was horrible 
to prolong the agony. 



344 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“ Come back, dear, to — to all who love you.” 

“ Good-bye, Mother Louisa,” Roger said, putting his 
arms round her and hugging her up to him. “ Good-bye.” 

He kissed her hurriedly and was gone, swallowed up in 
the darkness. 

She strained her eyes in the direction he had taken, but 
in any case she would not have been able to see him, even 
if it had been light, for they were blinded with tears. 

She put her hand in her apron pocket to get out her hand¬ 
kerchief and in doing so felt the letters he had given her 
to post. 

Why had he done that, she wondered, instead of post¬ 
ing them when he got back to town. They would lose half 
a day in getting to their respective destinations. A sudden 
idea struck her. He didn’t want them to be delivered 
before he left England. 

When she got back to the kitchen she took them out and 
looked at the addresses. With the sight of John’s name 
on the second one an inspiration came to her. 

She stood there for a minute, the envelope in her hand, 
cogitating. 

“ Father, what time’s the next train to London?” she 
asked at last. 

“ Eight ten, but Master Roger’ll catch the six thirty 
easy.” 

“ I wasn’t thinking about Master Roger,” she said. “ I 
was thinking about myself.” 

“ Yourself /” Mr. Jolland stared at her as if he thought 
she had taken leave of her senses. “ Why, whatever’s 
taken hold of you? What on earth should you want galli¬ 
vanting up to London in the dead of night?” 

“ I’ve got to see Mr. Ffoulkes,” she said. “ I must see 
Mr. Ffoulkes before Master Roger sails. There’s something 
wrong. I’ve got to find out what it is. You mustn’t stop 
me, Father. I haven’t crossed your will in all the years I’ve 
been married, but I’m going to London tonight whether you 
forbid me or not. I’ve got to get this matter of Master 



A CERTAIN MAN 


345 


Roger’s straightened out before he goes away. If I don’t 
I’ll never have another easy moment if I live to be a 
hundred. You can’t prevent me, Father. Look,” she 
pointed with a shaking hand to the card hanging on the 
wall. “A man has gone from this house! If Dick was 
here he wouldn’t let Master Roger go without trying to set 
things to rights. Well, as he isn’t here, I’ve got to act for 
him. George’ll drive me to the station in the trap, won’t 
you, George?” 

She turned to her son who was sitting open mouthed. 

“ If you really mean to go, I will,” he said, with a half- 
frightened glance in his father’s direction. Mr. Jolland had 
been the arbiter of all their fates ever since he could 
remember and it upset all his preconceived notions that his 
mother should assume this dictatorial air and determine her 
own course of action. 

“ But where’ll you sleep, Mother?” said Mr. Jolland 
helplessly. His wife’s whirlwind methods had lifted him 
off his feet and he didn’t feel equal to coping with the 
situation that had arisen. 

“ I’ll go to a hotel,” said Mrs. Jolland shortly, conscious 
she had gained her point. “ I’ll go and put some things in 
a bag.” 

“ And I’ll have some supper ready for you when you come 
>dowi^,” Winnie said, ranging herself definitely on her 
mother’s side. 

“ I suppose I’m playing double with Master Roger,” 
Mrs. Jolland said to herself, as she rumbled Londonwards, 
“ but there’s something amiss. Mr. Ffoulkes’ll know what 
to do for the best. And after all,” she reflected, “ if I 
choose to save the postman and deliver a letter for him, it’s 
not the fault of the post office if it gets there a post too 
soon.” With which sophistry she lulled her conscience to 
rest, and dismissed the matter from her mind. 



CHAPTER XXIII 


Since leaving Porth Ros at the end of his holidays John 
had more than once wondered, with a certain amount of 
misgiving, whether he could have acted differently to the 
way he did in the matter of Biddy and Roger. 

He was quite sure that he had not been mistaken in 
his surmises but the very fact that he had stumbled upon 
Biddy’s secret by accident made it seem impossible that he 
should betray it. It would, he felt, be like betraying a 
secret of the confessional even though in this case there had 
been no spoken confession. Besides, there was just the 
bare possibility that he had been mistaken. He had only 
guesswork to go upon and there was the one chance in a 
hundred that he might have guessed wrong. If so and he 
had definitely told Roger that Biddy was in love with him, 
the already complex situation would have become still more 
involved than it was at present. He had done all he could 
in urging Roger to tell Biddy that he loved her. It had 
cost him a good deal to do even this much. It had required 
self-abnegation of the highest order to try deliberately to 
persuade another man to ask the woman whom he loved 
himself to marry him but he had put self into the back¬ 
ground and done this thing. He could have done no more. 

He was too well acquainted with Roger’s obstinate nature 
to expect to meet with any success in his attempt to over¬ 
ride his fixed determination to regard Biddy’s money as an 
insurmountable obstacle between him and her, added to 
which there was that vow Roger had taken. Absurd as 
that had been John could hardly ignore it and, in the face 
of it, set to work to induce Roger to forswear himself. 
To John an oath, even if it were taken without due con¬ 
sideration of the consequences attaching, was not a thing 
to be lightly put on one side if occasion required. Such a 

346 


A CERTAIN MAN 


347 


course of procedure was, to him, unthinkable. The oath 
was, in itself, a sufficient reason for his keeping silence, 

So he argued with himself but all the same there were 
times when he had to go over the ground afresh and re¬ 
assure himself. It was all a hopeless muddle, an impasse 
out of which there appeared to be no way, a riddle to 
which there was no answer. 

Therefore when Mrs. Jolland, on the morning following 
Roger’s visit to Harwood, that visit when he had given her 
those letters to post, arrived at John’s rooms in Eddis 
Street, flustered and bewildered by the miles she had had 
to traverse in order to reach them, he was brought up 
sharply against the horns of a dilemma. 

He must, definitely and at once, decide upon a course 
of action. There was no time in which to sit down and 
think things over. He must either do something straight 
away or leave the matter where it stood, which was equiva¬ 
lent to letting it slide altogether. 

Mrs. Jolland’s unexpected advent had found John unpre¬ 
pared. He had been imagining Roger still at Porth Ros 
and to learn suddenly that he was starting for Africa that 
very day, almost, it might be said, that very hour, upset 
his calculations. 

For Roger to go off without a word made it appear on 
the surface as though he was going out of his way to show 
that he had no longer any use for John’s friendship. 

John knew it was not so really. The letter Mrs. 
Jolland had brought with her proved that for it stated 
fairly Roger’s reasons for behaving as he was doing and 
between the written lines could be read the loneliness and 
bitterness of the boy’s soul. 

What a hideous muddle it all was! Here were two 
people who loved one another and false pride and self- 
will were keeping them apart. There didn’t seem any 
loophole of escape that he could see. 

He looked at Mrs. Jolland sitting there, outwardly calm 
and placid, showing none of the emotion stirring beneath 



348 


A CERTAIN MAN 


her unruffled exterior, as a broad stream gives no sign of 
the currents swirling and eddying beneath its unruffled 
surface. 

She had recovered from the perturbation which her jour¬ 
ney had caused her and was once more the serene motherly 
woman to whom Roger had been accustomed to bring his 
childish troubles and griefs, ready to hide her own feelings 
if, by so doing, she could gain his confidence and give 
him comfort. 

John felt the influence of her serenity and, on a sudden 
impulse, thrust the letter into her hands. 

“ Read this,” he said. 

She took it into her hands and it was only the slight 
trembling of them which showed how stirred she really 
was. 

She made no demur about reading this letter of Roger’s 
as another might have done. She was prepared to go to 
any lengths to help “Master Roger” and if Mr. Ffoulkes 
thought it desirable for her to learn the contents of this 
communication she was willing to abide by his decision. 

“ Dear old chap,” she read, “ you’ll be thinking me a 
callous brute to go off like this without making any attempt 
to see you and say good-bye. When you get this I shall be 
on my way to Africa where I’ve got a job through the 
kindness of Mrs. Panter. If things had panned out dif¬ 
ferently I couldn’t have left England without coming to see 
you and thank you for all you have done for me. As it 
is, I feel it would be a bit too invidious to bid you farewell 
and not do the same to Biddy and that I daren’t do. 

“ My feelings haven’t changed in that direction! I shall 
never love any other woman as I love her. I shall never 
love any other woman again. There can’t be two women 
in one’s life that count in the way she has counted in mine. 
I haven’t any doubt about that. If I didn’t love her so 
awfully perhaps her money wouldn’t have Come between 
us but, as it is, I daren’t risk making her unhappy. I’ve 
sworn and I’ll keep my oath, whatever the cost. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


349 


“What has she to do with me, a shadow of the night? 
Some day, old man, when Biddy is safely married to some¬ 
body else, tell her about all this. The thought of her mar¬ 
ried to anyone else is hell but it has to be faced for she 
is too sweet and dear to be passed over. Damn the fellow 
whoever he is. He’s a lucky chap! 

“ You’ve been the truest and best pal a man could wish 
for, old man. Whatever else has come of it, you’ve re¬ 
created me and made me a man again. God bless you for 
it. I’ll write sometimes if I may and if I haven’t counted 
myself out by ratting off like this without a word to you, 
my good Samaritan. Try to understand and forgive. 
Roger.” 

Mrs. Jolland made no comment while she read the letter 
and, when she had finished it, handed it back to John. 

“ This oath he talks about. What is it?” she asked, after 
a moment’s pause. 

“ You see, Mrs. Rycroft is very rich,” John explained, 
“ and Roger, the obstinate young idiot, has sworn not to 
ask her to marry him because he believes people will think 
he only married her for her money. Of course it’s the most 
absolute rubbish but there it is.” 

Mrs. Jolland nodded. 

“ That’s him all over,” she said. “ He’s as proud as 
Lucifer. What ever difference does her being rich make if 
they love one another? Does this lady you speak about 
love him, Mr. Ffoulkes?” 

“ I’m afraid she does, Mrs. Jolland.” 

“Is she — nice?” 

“ Yes, she is.” 

Something in the way John uttered the simple words 
caused Mrs. Jolland to look at him with sudden keen per¬ 
ception. There was a kind of defiant ring in them which 
seemed to resent any hint of criticism in discussing this 
lady, which aroused her suspicions. 

“ I believe he’s in love with her himself, poor gentleman,” 
was her unspoken thought. 


350 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“ What’s to be done about it?” John asked, growing 
restive under her scrutiny. 

Mrs. Jolland considered. 

“ If it’s as you say, and she’s really in love with him, she 
ought to be given the chance.” 

“ The chance of what?” 

“ Of proving it.” 

“ But how can she do that if Roger has made this ridicu¬ 
lous vow? He can’t go back on that. You see, it wasn’t 
as if he just said ‘ I swear I won’t marry her.’ He put it 
much more strongly than that.” 

“ How much more strongly?” 

“ He said, ‘ I swear by Almighty God.’ I couldn’t do 
anything to help him break a solemn oath like that, 
could I?” 

“ I suppose you couldn’t,” Mrs. Jolland said regretfully. 
“ Besides, if you could, he wouldn’t break it himself. 
Master Roger never went back on his word yet. That’s one 
of the things Dick taught him.” 

“ So there we are, you see,” John said, throwing out 
his hands in despair. “ What can we do?” 

“ You say it’s just this money has frightened Master 
Roger away? Very well then. If this lady loves him truly 
she’ll let this money go sooner than run the risk of losing 
him altogether. You must go to her, Mr. Ffoulkes, and 
tell her all about it, and leave her to choose.” 

John looked at her in startled amazement. 

“ Oh, I couldn’t do that,” he said hurriedly. “ She’s 
never told me anything. It’s pure guesswork on my part 
and I may be quite wrong about it.” 

“ You may be quite right,” Mrs. Jolland said composedly. 
“ That’s what you’ve got to find out. If you are wrong 
there’s no great harm done, but if you’re right — ” 

“ You don’t know what it is you’re asking me to do,” 
John interrupted her sharply. 

“ I think I do, Sir,” returned Mrs. Jolland quietly. “ I’m 
asking you to do what, perhaps, is the hardest thing that 



A CERTAIN MAN 


351 


has ever come your way but I’m not asking too much if 
you’re what I take you to be. We all have our chances. 
Whether we take them or not is another matter. Master 
Roger had his and allowed his stubborn pride to interfere. 
It rests with you, Mr. Ffoulkes, whether this lady is to 
be given hers. That’s your chance.” 

“And Roger’s second! It seems so unfair,” John said, 
rebelliously. 

“ Love always is unfair on one side or the other,” Mrs. 
Jolland observed, not pedantically but merely stating a 
fact. “ If love was perfect on both sides there would be 
no need for unselfishness in it and it seems to me that it is 
that loves feeds on. Even God’s love is made perfect 
because of human weakness. But just listen to me now, 
preaching a sermon to a clergyman!” 

“ Sometimes clergymen need sermons as much, or per¬ 
haps more, than other people,” acknowledged John readily. 
“ You’ve made me ashamed of myself, Mrs. Jolland. Do 
you happen to know what time the boat-train goes?” 

“ One o’clock he has to be on board at Tilbury,” she 
told him. 

John looked at his watch. 

“ There’s not too much time if she’s to get to Liverpool 
Street in time to catch him,” he said. 

“ Then you’re going to her?” Mrs. Jolland asked. 

“ Yes.” 

The curt monosyllable was as much as he could manage. 
He couldn’t enlarge upon the subject. Once again he had 
fought and overthrown self but, for the moment, he could 
find no satisfaction in the knowledge. 

There was a certain amount of inevitable delay before 
John could make a start. He had had to see his vicar 
and arrange with him to be away. There had been a con¬ 
siderable difficulty in getting a taxi and, when he did 
succeed, he had had to drop Mrs. Jolland at Charing Cross 
on his way. 

He had also called at the shipping offices in Cockspur 


352 


A CERTAIN MAN 


Street and ascertained what time the special train left for 
Tilbury, having previously discovered the name of Roger’s 
boat from Mrs. Jolland, so that it was a few minutes past 
eleven before he reached Biddy’s house and, since it was 
twelve that the train left, there was no time to be lost. 

He groaned aloud in despair when Barnby informed him 
that Biddy was out. What was to be done now? 

“ Would you care to see Miss Bellamy, Sir?” the man 
asked. 

With the astuteness of the servant mind Barnby gathered 
that something out of the ordinary was afoot and he dis¬ 
played an anxiety to assist which was not entirely devoid of 
self-interest. Barnby had gleaned that a domestic crisis 
was pending and he wished to bring it to a head so as to 
have it quite clear whether he himself would be adversely 
affected by it. Insecurity of tenure didn’t suit his books. 

John, after hasty cogitation, decided that he would see 
Miss Bellamy and was ushered up to the drawing room 
with a ceremoniousness which Barnby reserved for special 
occasions. 

Miss Bellamy was writing letters but she put down her 
pen when John was announced and rose to meet him with 
an absence of surprise at which he was somewhat astonished, 
considering the hour and the fact that Wednesday was, as 
Miss Bellamy well knew, not his usual day for coming 
there. 

“ I suppose you’ve heard from Biddy,” she said, without 
waiting for formalities. 

John looked mystified. 

“ Does she know then?” 

He felt that it was rather an anti-climax if he had made 
all this hurroosh to tell her something she was already 
aware of. 

“ Know? Know what?” Miss Bellamy asked him, mysti¬ 
fied in her turn. 

“ About Roger going to Africa.” 

“ Whatt” 



A CERTAIN MAN. 353 

Miss Bellamy shot out the word with such suddenness 
that John jumped. 

“ Roger’s sailing for Africa today,” John said. 

“ Today,” gasped Miss Bellamy, sinking down upon the 
nearest chair. “ But why? He never mentioned it in his 
letters to Biddy. We thought he was still at Porth Ros.” 

“ So did I, but he wasn’t, you see. I only heard about 
it myself this morning. You’d better read this.” 

He held out the letter to her and she snatched it out of 
his hands and eagerly read it through. 

“ The irony of fate,” she remarked with a rather grim 
smile, when she had mastered its contents. 

“ What do you mean?” enquired John. 

“ I mean that, at this precise moment, Biddy is at her 
solicitor’s office making over Colonel Rycroft’s money to 
some odd relatives of his whom she has run to earth.” 

John blinked at her uncomprehendingly. 

“ Making over Colonel Rycroft’s money,” he repeated 
stupidly. “ But whatever for?” 

“ This,” said Miss Bellamy, smacking the letter she held 
in her hand quite viciously. 

“ But — but did she know?” 

“ Of course she knew,” Miss Bellamy snorted. “ She 
knew before we left Porth Ros. If you and Roger will 
persist in holding intimate conversations at the pitch of 
your voices on an open beach you must not be surprised if 
you are overheard.” 

“ That night — the night Roger — ” John began, then 
paused uncertainly. 

“ Exactly. That night — the night Roger — ” mimicked 
Miss Bellamy, “ Biddy happened to be standing on the 
steps when Roger was holding forth about her money being 
a bar to his telling her that he loved her. Apparently, 
though I never knew until it was too late to interfere, she 
made up her mind on the spot to get rid of it and, by a 
curious coincidence, the very day after we got back to 
London, she discovered these relations of her husband’s, 



354 


A CERTAIN MAN 


of whose existence she had hitherto been unaware, and 
determined to settle it all on them.” 

“ Would you have tried to dissuade her if you had 
known?” John enquired. 

Miss Bellamy considered before she replied. 

“ I’m not quite sure. It all seems a little quixotic and it 
rather annoys me that, because Roger strains at a gnat, 
Biddy should have to swallow a camel but, as against that, 
it gets her out of the clutches of the Panter person, which is 
something to be grateful for.” 

“ Not unless we can catch Roger before he goes.” 

“ She’ll follow him if necessary,” Miss Bellamy said, con¬ 
fidently. “ The Panter woman has delivered herself into 
our hands as evidenced in this letter. She’s not the sort 
to do something for nothing. You may be sure she has an 
ulterior motive in getting this job for Roger. The thought 
of scoring her off almost reconciles me to this hare-brained 
scheme of Biddy’s. What about telephoning to Biddy at 
her solicitor’s? What time does the train leave?” 

John told her. 

“ Three quarters of an hour from now. It’ll be touch 
and go. Look here. You’d better start off straight away 
to Chancery Lane, pick her up there, and take her on to 
Liverpool Street while I do the telephoning.” 

“ What will you tell her?” asked John doubtfully. 

“ You leave that to me,” said Miss Bellamy firmly. 
“ When once I get going I don’t beat about the bush, I can 
assure you. Not that she’ll want much telling! I don’t 
suppose she’ll bother about details.” 

“ Then I’ll be off,” John announced. “ What’s the num¬ 
ber in Chancery Lane, by the way?” 

Miss Bellamy gave him the necessary information and he 
dashed out of the room. 

She followed him out on to the landing and leaned over 
the banisters. 

“If you think it will do him any good you can give Roger 
my love,” she called down after him. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


355 


John, slipping in and out of the traffic in his taxi, glanced 
anxiously at any clocks he passed en route for Chancery 
Lane. At St. Martin’s Church his cab was held up for 
some precious minutes by a policeman and in the Strand 
half the road was up and a slow-moving dray prevented the 
driver from proceeding at more than a snail’s pace, so that 
it was twenty to twelve before he stopped at the door of 
the block of buildings in which the offices of Messrs. Viney, 
Hamnett & Pearce were situated. 

Biddy was on the steps, looking impatiently up and down 
the road, and directly she caught sight of John she ran 
down them and was at the door of the taxi almost before 
it had drawn up beside the curb. 

“ Shall we do it?” she asked breathlessly as she got into 
the cab without waiting for John to alight. 

“ It’ll be touch and go,” John replied. 

“ Will you let me see the letter, please?” she demanded as 
soon as they were under way again. 

Miss Bellamy, it was evident, had acquainted her with 
the exact position of affairs, for Biddy made the request as 
though it were her right to read what Roger had written 
and John put it into the hand she held out, without 
comment. 

She read it through in silence and when she had finished 
there was a tender little smile on her lips although they 
were trembling as if she were not very far off tears. 

She did not give it back but sat there holding it in her 
hand. 

“ I want to keep it,” she explained. 

It was two minutes to the hour when the cab turned down 
the slope leading to the departure platform. 

Biddy was on the side nearest to the booking office and, 
almost before the cab was at a standstill, was out of it and 
running into the station. 

John stopped to pay the driver and then sprinted after 
her but by the time he reached the platform she was out 
of sight. 



356 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“Where does the special for Tilbury start from?” he 
enquired of a passing porter. 

“ From the bay up yonder but she’s due out now. You’ll 
miss her,” the man said, and even as he spoke, a few 
cheers coming from the direction the porter indicated fell 
upon John’s ears, mingled with the sound of escaping steam, 
and he saw the train slowly drawing out of the bay. They 
were too late! Roger had gone. 

John went on and presently saw Biddy coming towards 
him. 

“Oh, John!” was all she said, her voice breaking on the 
words in a little sob, while two tears forced themselves 
from beneath her eyelids and trickled down her cheeks. 

“ Cheer up, Biddy,” John said valiantly. “ Look here, 
I’ll tell you what. We’ll taxi down to Tilbury. We shall 
get there almost as soon as the train. Come along.” 

They hurried out of the station and, after a little delay, 
secured a cab, the driver of which was willing to undertake 
the journey. 

The road to Tilbury from London is not an inspiriting 
one. Biddy hardly spoke as mile after mile unwound itself 
in front of their eyes, but she stole a cold little hand into 
John’s as though it comforted her to feel the warm clasp 
of his upon it. 

It didn’t comfort John however. He did not altogether 
appreciate being assigned the role of elder brother thus 
definitely. It gave him a sort of lonely feeling. He had 
to shut his lips tight together lest his emotions should over¬ 
power him and rise to the surface. 

It was a quarter to one when they arrived at the Dock 
station at Tilbury. They made their way down to the place 
where they were told the tender for the Cape Noon was 
waiting to take out the passengers to the ship which was 
lying out in the river. The train had already, been in some 
time and round the shore end of the gangway leading to the 
tender was a surging crowd of people, some pressing for¬ 
ward to get on board, others lingering behind bidding 



A CERTAIN MAN 


357 


farewell to their friends who had come to see them off. 
A few of the women were crying quietly and one, an elderly 
one, was stroking the face of a youngish man, evidently 
her son from whom she was parting, with fingers that shook 
as though they were palsied. 

“ I’m too old. I’m too old,” she was repeating over and 
over again in a wailing voice, as John and Biddy passed 
her. 

“ Don’t you fret, Mum. I’ll come back to you one of 
these days,” they heard the man say, in tones which belied 
his brave efforts to make them convincing, but the poor 
creature refused to be comforted. 

“I’m too old,” she whimpered once again. 

“Oh, John! It’s awful,” Biddy said, pressing closer to 
him. “ I don’t wonder Roger funked it.” 

She scanned the throng of people eagerly, trying to dis¬ 
tinguish Roger among them and at last she saw him. 

“ There he is,” she caught John by the sleeve. “ Go and 
bring him to me. I’ll wait here by this block!” 

They were close to one of the iron pillars over which the 
cable was slipped which kept the bows of the tender from 
swinging out into the stream. 

John elbowed his way through the crowd toward Roger, 
who was standing a little distance in front, suitcase in 
hand. 

Some extra sense seemed to warn him of John’s approach 
for, before the latter came up with him, he turned and 
looked behind him. 

At the sight of John he stiffened. 

“ So that damned woman broke her promise,” he said 
fiercely, as John reached his side. “Or was it old Peal?” 

“ Never mind about that now, old ch^p. Biddy’s here. 
She wants to see you,” John remarked quietly. 

Roger gulped down something in his throat. 

“ It won’t do any good,” he said doggedly. “ God, man! 
Can’t I even be allowed to clear out in peace? I won’t see 
her. I — I couldn’t stick it if I did.” 



358 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“ She’s got to stick it,” John said. “ Are you going to 
make it worse for her than it is already?” 

Roger looked at him in a frightened way. 

“What d’you mean?” he asked. 

“ Let her tell you,” John said. “ I’ll tell you this much. 
If you refuse to see her now, you’ll repent it every day 
and every hour to the end of your life.” 

“ It won’t do any good,” Roger said again, but this time 
he hesitated perceptibly and John, seizing his opportunity, 
took hold of him by the arm and turned him round. 

“ There she is,” he said simply, pointing her out and, 
almost as though drawn by invisible cords, Roger moved 
slowly forward in the direction where she stood waiting. 

Nearer and nearer he drew until he was within a couple 
of paces of her when she moved forward to meet him and, 
in doing so, caught her foot in a coil of rope and, tripping, 
would have fallen, had not Roger instinctively put out his 
arms to catch her. 

For a few seconds they remained thus, then Roger recol¬ 
lected himself and, with a little groan, freed her from his 
encircling arms. Freed her, but found that he was not 
free himself, for her hands were locked at the back of his 
neck and, short of by physical force, he could not release 
himself. 

Her upturned face was only just below the level of his so 
that he had but to bend his head to touch her lips with his 
and he resolutely turned it aside lest he might be unable 
to resist the temptation they offered, but Biddy shifted her 
left hand and, with the palm of it pressing against his 
cheek, slowly forced it back to its original position. He 
had either to look at her or shut his eyes and he chose the 
latter alternative because he dared not risk the former. 

So many people were bidding one another farewell all 
around them that they attracted no particular attention 
and John had not attempted to follow Roger but was stand¬ 
ing on the spot where he had overtaken him, feigning an 



A CERTAIN MAN. 359 

interest in the scenes taking place in his immediate vicinity 
which he was far from feeling. 

“ Roger,” Biddy whispered, “ was it me or my money you 
were running away from?” 

“ For God’s sake, Biddy,” he besought her. 

“ Tell me,” she insisted. 

His mouth shut like a trap and he made no reply to the 
question. 

“ Dear silly,” she said. “ It’s Love versus Pride — and 
Love wins.” 

“Biddy!” In the shock of surprise Roger opened his 
eyes and stared at her. “ Who told you that?” 

“ My heart,” she answered, wilfully misinterpreting his 
meaning. 

“ You don’t understand,” he said despairingly. “ For 
God’s sake let me go and don’t torture me any longer.” He 
struggled to get free. 

“I won’t let you go,” she declared vehemently. “You 
belong to me.” 

“ How can I? Oh, can’t you see the great gulf between 
us? I’m nothing but a shadow of the night and you’re — 
you’re the sunshine. We can have nothing in common.” 

“ Not even love?” 

“ Don’t ask me that,” he said piteously. “ How can I 
make you understand?” 

“ Perhaps I do,” she said. “Roger, you haven’t answered 
my question yet. Were you running away from we?” 

“ No.” The word came out with an effort. 

“Then it was my money?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Dear, I knew it before I asked, only I wanted to hear it 
from your own lips. You see, I happened to overhear what 
you said, that night on Morant Beach.” 

“ You overheard? Then you heard — ” Roger began, 
then paused uncertainly, groping for the necessary words. 

“ I heard the oath you took,” Biddy said. 

“ It still holds good,” Roger said doggedly. 



360 


A CERTAIN MAN 


“ Let it,” she replied. “ That miserable money needn’t 
stand between us any longer because it’s no longer mine.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“ I mean I’ve given it back to those to whom it rightly 
belonged, because — because, you see, I happened to — to 
love you best.” 

“ Biddy! You — you care for me as much as that?” 

“ I care for you more than that,” she whispered. 

Once again his arms were round her and now he made no 
attempt to resist the temptation of those lips so close to his 
since there was no longer any need. 

John, glancing in their direction, saw them clinging to 
one another and turned his head away again quickly, his 
mouth twisted in a rather wry smile. He tried his utmost 
to feel glad that things had come right between these two 
whom he loved, but, in spite of himself, he could not help 
a pang of anguish darting through his heart at the sight. 
They had no thought to spare for him. He was less than 
nothing to them — just the unwanted third. He suddenly 
felt tired and old and very lonely. 

The last few passengers were crossing the gangway to the 
tender before Biddy and Roger came down to where he 
waited. 

“Well?” he said. 

“ It is well, John,” Biddy said, her eyes shining, her 
cheeks softly flushed with pink. “ I’m going out to him a 
month from now.” 

“ Dear old John,” Roger said. “ I wish you could come 
out and marry us.” 

With an heroic effort John forced himself to smile. 

“ I’m afraid that’s asking a bit too much,” he said. “ My 
— my people couldn’t spare me.” 

He turned away that he might not appear to be watching 
the final leave-taking before Roger went on board. 

A little sighing breeze, borne on the outgoing tide, floated 
down the river and it sounded in John’s ears like a lament 
played softly over the grave of his buried hopes. 



A CERTAIN MAN 


361 


He and Biddy and Roger! 

Three little cogs in the vast machinery of the world each 
in its appointed place. Ah, well! The Mechanician had 
put them where they were. He knew His job. 
























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